Touching You
by Athena13
Summary: Summer 2005. Jolie. Natalie is kidnapped. John needs to find her. Dark.
1. Prologue

**Touching You**  
By Athena13

>>>>>>  
Prologue  
>>>>>>  
Touching you.

I miss it.

Your scent.

I need it.

I let you go, but held on tight.

The way I miss you.

The way you ease me.

The way you kiss me.

The way you tease me.

Your smile.

I memorized it.

Your laugh.

It haunts dreams.

Words I could never say. Lies I couldn't not.

Now, you're gone.

Touching you.

I need it.

Your scent.

I miss it.

I need to find you. Though you were never mine to give away.

I sit in my chair and I work and I pray.

Because touching you.

I need it.  
>>>>>


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: We deserve a summer of John suffering. If ABCD and ME won't give it to us, we'll just have to get it for ourselves. To everyone on the Yahoo fiction group. You are all inspiring!

>>>>>>>>>>>

All the words he'd never said and all those he did jumble around in his tired mind.

It's been days, but he can't sleep more than a cat nap on his leather couch. He can't eat more than a protein bar and sip bottomless cups of coffee. He knows his men and women are doing their best with what little clues they'd got, but he still yells at them. Demanding the impossible and praying for a miracle.

People keep coming into his office to tell him to rest. To step back. Telling him he is losing perspective. That he isn't going to be any good to Natalie if his body shuts down.

The irony of it all is that Natalie would never have done that. She would have brought him a meal from Rodi's and wordlessly left it for him. He would have eaten it without even noticing it was there until it was gone. Then he would have thanked her as she was leaving him a pillow and blanket.

But Natalie isn't here, which was why he won't rest. Not until he finds her and destroys the bastard that dared to steal her away from him. He doesn't know why yet, but he knows this had gotten personal. He knows the killer had gone after Natalie before, but something had changed and he had gone after both Natalie and Evangeline forcing John to choose which one to save. Then the bastard had taken the one he had picked first. Natalie. In truth, the only choice was admitting that there was no choice. If Natalie was in danger, he saved her. And the killer now knew that for certain.

He told Evangeline and her mother that it was training and that it meant nothing who he got to first. That wasn't completely true, not in the end. He went towards Evangeline because she was furthest from the door, but he had to look back at Natalie. To make sure she was all right. To see her flaming red hair again. She wasn't, she had passed out. That should have cemented it. All his training told him to save the one who could walk away themselves first, But he couldn't take the chance. He couldn't hold himself back from Natalie.

She was breathing and warm when he took her down and laid her on the floor. She was alive under his skin. Then he looked up and remembered his job, the other woman he cared about. Now, she was in trouble. Evangeline was struggling with consciousness and he tried to get her fully back so she could walk. He couldn't carry them both. Help would be coming. Then he saw Bo out of the corner of his eye, but somehow he didn't see Natalie being taken.

John slammed his empty mug on the desk and rubbed his eyes.

There had to be two now. Maybe one of them had killed the Love Crew and had made the two attempts on Natalie. Now, the other was playing another game. One outside the book.

John scribbled something on the white pad on his desk.

Maybe the killer was pissed because he saved Natalie from the arrow?

Maybe they were working together. One of the killers was at Llanfair taking Natalie and the other at The Palace for Evangeline. How else had the killer known where to send Rex's stupid note? John continued to think it through for the hundredth time.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with John, directly, but was about Natalie. Which brought John right back to Ron Walsh. He was the only man who Natalie was dating at the same time she was engaging in her determined campaign for John.

And Natalie would have let Ron walk right up to Llanfair while she was getting in her car.

John tossed his pen down on the desk.

The problem was connecting Ron directly to anything. Security at Llanfair never saw him and his fingerprints weren't found. He hadn't admitted to anything when questioned.

Or maybe it wasn't personal and the killer was just baiting the cops by taking the Commissioner's niece and assistant?

Or maybe it had something to do with whoever took Cristian in the first place and wanted Tico and Antonio dead?

Natalie was just too intimately connected with practically everyone in Llanview and there was no evidence to rule anything or anyone out. Marcie's book was as good a ruse as anything in the beginning. So were Marcie's journals, which had been stolen from her father's house in Jersey. She had talked about them in the media as the inspiration for her novel.

John stood up and pressed his forehead against the window. He toyed with his overgrown facial hair and tried really hard to remember the feel of her against him. Her scent. Her laugh. They were getting harder and harder to imagine. He was afraid that once those memories were gone she would be too. She would be gone a week in a few hours and the odds were she was dead.

John's fist connected with the window sill. He would not believe that. He couldn't. The old wound in his stomach was aching, reminding him of what it would be like if he could never argue with her again.

Why the hell was this happening to her?

"John!"

Michael's strident call finally penetrated John's tortured thoughts.

"What?" John turned around. He didn't bother to hide the tears in his eyes.

"You look like shit, man."

John shrugged and rubbed his burning eyes.

"Please come back to the hotel with me and get some sleep and food."

John dropped his hand and looked at his brother and then down at his desk. Michael was probably right. His mind was too sluggish to make sense of anything right now. He couldn't even muster up a heated protest.

"Mom is coming to Llanview tomorrow."

"Mom?"

"She's worried about you and about Natalie."

"Yeah, me too." John's whisper reached his brother's ears.

Michael moved forward and put his hand on John's arm. "Come on. Let's go."

John nodded, shrugged off Michael's grasp and walked out of his office of his own accord.


	3. Chapter 2

Angel Square Hotel  
Room 6

John stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at the painkillers he held in his burned palm. They might be his only pathway to sleep, but if a call came he might not be able to wake up. Or the dreams. He knew they would come. They always did when his old wound acted up, which it always did when Natalie was in trouble. Scared. He could feel her fear seeping in as the image of the pills blurred in his vision. A life spent trusting his instincts and things he couldn't explain, he knew it was her. And that she was alive.

He dropped the pills back into the bottle and shoved back into the medicine cabinet.

He'd get just enough sleep to reorder his mind and then he'd go back to work.

Meanwhile, Bo promised to call if anything happened.

John tossed the wet towel onto the floor of the bathroom and walked naked towards his bed. He had just pushed the blanket out of the way when there was a knock at the door. Annoyed at the intrusion he walked over to the door without bothering to put anything on. He opened it expecting his brother and was surprised to see Evangeline. He bit back a terse question.

"I called the station, they said you came home. I wanted to. To. Uh. Ummm." Evangeline's eyes dropped below John's waist. She watched droplets of water slide down his thighs and through the hair between his legs.

John smirked and idly wondered if she would beat pills for getting to sleep. It had worked before, but right now he could barely muster enough desire for her to make it worthwhile.

"Yes?" He kept one hand holding the door and the other on his hip.

Evangeline's eyes darted back up to John's. Her cheeks warmed as she saw his disdain.

"Did you want to _come_ in?" he asked. He was satisfied when he saw her eyes widen with anger.

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right," she said stiffly.

The hand at John's hip clenched and his breathing sped up. "You want to know if I'm all right with Natalie still missing and you and your harpy mother screaming at me because I didn't untie you first. You've got to be kidding me! You know what you really want? You want to seduce me into taking you back and telling you what you want to hear. You thought I was too damned stupid and common to know what you were up to. I knew all right. I just didn't give a fuck as long as you shut up long enough to have sex! So don't come here now and try to manipulate me again and begin your complaining about Natalie, Natalie, Natalie! Natalie!" John screamed her name over and over again.

"Maybe this was a mistake." Evangeline turned to go.

"You're damned right!" John slammed the door. Evangeline could hear him punch it. With a wide-eyed pout she stormed away.

John was breathing heavy and now his fist was throbbing. "God damn it!" He yelled when someone started pounding on his door.

"What?" he yelled as he wrenched the door open.

"John?" Michael's worried voice cut through the red haze blurring his senses.

"You all right Johnny boy?" Roxy nudged Michael over and gave John the once-over. Then she looked back up at his face. "You're worried about my Natty." She reached up and put a comforting hand on his face. With the other she pinched his butt.

"I can take care of my brother, Roxy." Michael grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her away.

"Call me if you need anything. I wouldn't roach the man my Natty wants, but thanks for the view just the same."

John broke into a genuine smile for the first time since he told Natalie to leave his room.

"Imagine growing up with her for a mother," Michael mumbled as he pushed his naked, grinning brother into the room and closed the door.

"You all right? I heard you bellowing Natalie's name down the hallway. Everyone did."

John's face fell and he walked towards the liquor cabinet. He pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels with his good hand.

"You don't need that, John. Just get some sleep." Michael grabbed the bottle and engaged in a brief tug of war before John let it go.

"I was about to when she showed up."

"What the hell happened, man?"

"That selfish bitch was pissed off because I untied Natalie first in the gym. Her and her crazy mother. Ha. She thinks Natalie has a crazy mother that judgmental…"

"Whoa, whoa. I could see why she'd be hurt man. You two were together for a year and you and Natalie, you don't even love her."

"Natalie is kidnapped and I'm supposed to worry because her feelings are hurt when I was just doing my damned job? She got out safe and her hurt feelings are more important than Natalie's life?" John's face was bright red with rage

"No. No. I'm just trying to see her side."

"There is no side. She's selfish. From day one all she complained about was my friendship with Natalie. It was always about what she wanted and what she was feelings. Nothing else mattered unless it was about her. I had to tell her I loved her, like it was some kind of prize."

John grabbed a pair of boxers out of his dresser drawer, suddenly conscious of standing naked with his brother in the room.

"She loved you, John. She still does."

"That's the point, Mikey. She doesn't love anyone but herself. God damn it! Here we are talking about her when Natalie is out there scared out of her mind and her life is in danger!"

John grabbed the bottle from where Michael had left it and with a warning glare at his brother, poured two glasses out.

Michael took one and sat down next to John on the couch.

"Natalie got me the one armed bandit back there." John motioned behind him.

Michael choked a bit on the rough liquor while John drained his glass and poured another.

"Every night I see those lights and I think of her. When she gave it to me. This time we were in Atlantic City, together. The night I had her pressed against it and we were going to make love."

Michael shifted uncomfortably next to him.

"Sometimes I'd have Evangeline against it and I'd pretend it was Natalie."

"Too much information," Michael mumbled and took another sip.

"That's who she wanted to tell her he loved her."

"Which one, John? Evangeline or Natalie?"

"Yeah. Exactly." John's laugh was mirthless.

"I have to find her, Mikey. I can feel her fear and that's the best thing I can feel right now, because then I know she's alive. I have to find her alive." John's voice broke and he began to shake with sobs. He held the bottle of Jack in one hand and his empty glass in the other and sobbed and howled.

Eventually, John's sobs slowed and Michael took the glass and bottle from his hands and put them on the table.

"I miss her," John whispered as Michael pulled him up and guided him to the bed.

"I know. I do too."

Michael put his brother under the covers and smoothed back his hair like his mother always did for them when they went to be without any supper. He watched as his brother slipped from exhaustion into sleep.


	4. Chapter 3

"John, you've only been gone for five hours. Not even." Bo's face was gray with exhaustion.

"I got a few hours. I'm not going to get anymore." The dark circles under John's eyes looked like they were permanent.

"Dreams?" Bo asked.

John shrugged and put his hands on his hips to go stand before the board in Bo's office where they were assembling the leads they had like a puzzle. He couldn't talk about the dreams.

"You should get some sleep yourself, Boss."

"Yeah. After my meeting with the Mayor."

"He still threatening to pull resources?"

"Yeah. But I have an ace up my sleeve."

"Yeah?" John turned around with a curious look on his face.

"The FBI is coming in today. If he pulls resources it's not going to look good for his multi-agency cooperative effort that he's running on for next year's election."

"Jersey or Philly office?" John asked.

"D.C."

"Really? BSU?"

"Yeah. Apparently someone made a few calls and got them interested. You wouldn't happen to know who that was would you?" Bo asked with a knowing look.

"The local office guys helping us are good, but we need more on this. We aren't getting anywhere." Frustration roughened John's voice.

"This guy is going to meet with Marcie, first thing."

"Do you think this really has anything to do with Marcie's journals? I know he's been copying them, but I don't think it has anything to do with her. Not anymore."

"She wanted to speak with Marcie, first thing. I guess she knows what she's doing."

"John, there's one thing I might not be able to talk the Mayor out of."

"He wants to pull me off the case. I'm not going to do that, even if you take my badge."

"I figured. Listen. I'm going to go to that meeting now. Why don't you work out of here. Rex should be here any minute to badger us and the profiler will be here in half an hour."

John waited until Bo was out the door before he picked up the framed photograph of Jessica and Natalie that Bo kept behind his desk with his family photos.

She was so beautiful in the photo. It had been taken at the dinner party he had attended at Jess and Antonio's. She had been smiling, but the touch of sadness was obvious, at least to him. He touched his finger to the glass and stroked her face. God, how he had wanted her back then, but it had been too soon after she had lost her husband. He knew he would only hurt her.

John rubbed a hand over his face and pulled the photo to his chest. He had still hurt her. Because of him he she was gone. If only he had gone into the gym with proper back up. If only he had watched her when he was trying to get Evangeline conscious enough to walk out so he could carry Natalie. If only…

"Stop hugging her picture and find her in real life!" Rex's voice jarred John from his useless introspection.

"Rex." John put the picture down and turned to look at Natalie's brother. He was looking a bit rough around the edges himself. Angry, tired and agitated.

"She's been gone a week! When the hell are you guys going to find her? She's out there and she's scared."

"Natalie is strong; she can take care of herself." John willed himself to believe it.

"You feel it too. I know you do. Natty always said you had this connection."

"What did you find out? I know you've been nosing around," John added when Rex tried to play innocent.

"Nothing. Whoever this guy is who has Natty he isn't from the usual suspects in Llanview." Rex's shoulders dropped with defeat. "RJ and Antonio have been asking around, too. Can you believe they're cooperating?"

"For Natalie."

"Yeah, for Natalie. Why did you tell her you don't love her?" Rex titled his head, for the moment he wasn't a protective and worried brother, but a man wondering why.

John ignored the question and picked up a file from Bo's desk. The file with the analysis of the Killing Club journals Marcie had managed to remember or find

"Dammit! My sister could be dead and you're still playing the strong and silent crap! Give it the fuck up!" Rex smacked the file out of John's hands.

"Don't you ever say she's dead! She's not dead!" John grabbed Rex by the collar.

"Because you love her." Rex stared the cop down.

John tossed Rex back and glared at him.

"That look, that's me a month ago when Jen was dead. She didn't believe you, but you hurt her."

"That's why." John stopped and ran his fingers through the back of his hair.

Rex crossed his arms and waited.

"What the hell is the purpose of this conversation? What purpose does this serve in finding her?" John demanded.

"I dunno. Maybe you'll be able to think clearer when you're not so busy keeping all that bullshit bottled up inside."

"That sounds like something Roxy would say."

"No, that's something that Mrs. Davidson would say. And Natalie. I'm going back out there and we're going to find my sister."

"You stay safe, Balsom. Or your sister will have my hide."

"You too."

John grabbed the file he had been reading for the thousandth time after Rex left. Didn't they get it? It didn't matter what the hell John felt for Natalie. Right now all he had to do was find her.


	5. Chapter 4

"John? I was told to wait here in the Commissioner's office." Marcie stood hesitantly by the door.

"Yeah. The profiler is supposed to be here soon. How are you doing?"

"I'm okay." Marcie shuffled uncomfortable under John's hard stare. "Has Michael, you know, said anything to you about Natalie?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I guess he and Natalie have gotten….close recently. He's been really worried about her. I wondered if he's talked to you about it."

John looked at her like she was crazy. Natalie was missing and she was jealous?

"Michael and Natalie are just friends." John took a deep breath. Then another. If he exploded he would definitely get thrown out of the station.

"Are you sure?" Marcie looked like she wanted to believe him, but didn't.

"Marcie, Natalie had a couple of dates with your brother and she, uh. She's not interested in Michael." What the hell am I supposed to say? John wondered.

"Because she was in love with you, you mean." Marcie's lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval.

"What do you mean _was_?" John asked ominously.

Before Marcie could backtrack there was a knock at the door.

"Come in." John stood up.

In came walking a tall, thin woman with a shock of red hair the same color as Natalie's. Or Scully's for that matter. Except the shock of freckles across her face and her green eyes showed that her hair color came from heritage, not the drugstore.

John's hand shook slightly, but his face betrayed no emotion.

"I'm Marcia Kelly, from BSU in Washington. You must be Lieutenant John McBain, formerly of the Vegas, DC and AC offices. A pleasure."

She reached her hand out across the desk and he took it. He didn't say a word. Couldn't.

"You must be Marcie Walsh. Thank you for agreeing to speak to me." The agent turned her attention to the young woman.

"Oh, I couldn't not." Marcie was clearly awestruck as she shook hands with the federal agent.

"Is there a private room we can use?"

John nodded and picked up the telephone. In a moment a uniformed officer walked in the door.

"Tibbs will take you both to Interview 6."

"Marcie, why don't I meet you there. I want a word with the Lieutenant first."

"Sure. Sure." Marcie grabbed her purse and the folder with the journals and her book manuscript and followed the cop out.

"Is it the red hair or the lack of food and sleep that has you so shaky?"

"That's what I love about you BSU types, always so direct." John pasted on a smirk.

"That's what I love about you non-BSU types, always stalling." Marcia's answer was tempered by the friendly look on her face.

"Are you here to analyze me?"

"Yes. I need more than hearsay from your file and our mutual colleagues if we're going to find and bring Natalie Vega home alive."

"Do you believe we can?" John's heart pounded in his chest.

"I do."

John closed his eyes and rocked back on his heels. He didn't know this woman, but he had to believe her. He had no choice.

"You'll know I'd rather be out in the field than sitting here behind a desk reading files and fielding calls," is all he said out loud.

"But you don't have anymore leads to follow up on and you know better than to drive around hopelessly."

"That's about the truth of it."

"You know the odds are pretty high that she's already dead since there hasn't even been a ransom demand."

"You just said we were going to bring her back alive." John knew he was being baited, but he couldn't keep the rage and despair from flaming out of his deep blue eyes.

"And I need for you to be realistic, not fanciful. I know that your interest in the victim is highly personal."

"And you need to know what the kidnappers know about how personal."

She smiled at his observation, but didn't comment on his use of the plural term.

"Find me after you're done with Marcie."

"I intend to. Your cooperation will make it easier." With that she walked out the door.

John wondered where Bo kept his aspirin. He felt another headache coming on.

>>>>>>>>>>

"Tell me about the dreams, Lieutenant."

John looked up in surprise from the tomato soup someone had brought him and Agent Kelly to eat over his desk. They sat across from each other.

"It's obvious you haven't been sleeping and I see in your file you had them after the White Rose case and during the Music Box case."

John's scar began to throb at the mention of Haver.

"How is telling you my dreams going to help find, Natalie?" God, he was beginning to hate saying her name when she wasn't there to answer it.

"For one thing it might help you get some sleep. For another, if this case has gotten personal there might be something your subconscious is trying to tell you. Something you're missing."

John took a sip of the soup, but he didn't taste it. He imagined Vicki Buchanan, with her heart condition, waiting impatiently at Llanfair for word on her daughter. He imagined Clint pacing behind her. He imagined her brothers talking to their army of private investigators. He imagined Roxy crying hysterically on Vicki's shoulder. He envisioned Rex staying nights in Natalie's room at Llanfair where Vicki wordlessly let him stay every night that he came in from the hot summer night to rest and be near his sister's belongings. The least he could do was talk about his damned dreams.

"She's being buried alive. She's helpless and screaming my name."

"Do you see Natalie was a helpless person?"

"No. She's one of the strongest people I know. She wouldn't believe that. She thinks her feelings make her weak." A smile touched his lips as he thought about her strength. About her alive and well.

"But you know that her vulnerability makes her stronger than, say, you who keeps it all bottled inside." It was a statement not a question.

John's lips tightened and he leaned back in his chair.

"Why do you think the kidnapper decided to take her and not Evangeline?"

"Opportunity. I left Natalie alone. I turned my back on her. She was unconscious, she couldn't fight him." John clenched his burned hand and welcomed the pain.

"He also took the woman you saved first."

"I'll leave the psychoanalysis to you."

"Why did you save her first?"

"She was unconscious." John felt his respiration increase and he knew she could tell. Could see and hear it.

"You're angry at me. Why?"

John looked away.

Marcia put her hands on the desk and leaned forward. "It's because I'm making you feel like she does. What you always run from when it comes to her. Even though you can't stay away. Even though you can't not choose her."

"What the hell do you know?" John stood up abruptly and sent his chair back until it hit the wall under the window. He paced around her to the couch and back again to the other door.

"You're already telling me quite a bit."

"You don't know anything about it. No one does!"

"What don't we know?"

"You don't know that her husband is alive and in prison. Where I've left him to rot because he didn't want her to dedicate her life to waiting for him to get out of prison!"

"As a matter of fact I do know about Cristian Vega. Do you think the prison system hasn't done its own DNA test to try and find out who their prisoner is? Do you think the FBI just dropped the case on why this man was brainwashed to take out the Santi family heirs? Interpol, Scotland Yard and a dozen other agencies that have fought the Santi family want to know too."

At that a load seemed to lift off John's shoulders and he leaned back against the door to his office to the side of his desk. He bent over and rested his hands on his thighs.

"You're a former FBI agent and a cop. You had to know that would happen. Even if you kept the secret to protect Natalie Vega."

"The notebook is still in the evidence room downstairs." John stood up and looked at her.

"We didn't need the notebook. Cristian Vega is cooperating with us."

"Why do you know all this?"

"Because I'm here to find Cristian Vega's wife. The woman you love and would do anything, including risk your career and your life to protect."

"Does he know about his wife?"

"We haven't told him yet, but even in a safe house it's only a matter of time before he finds out."

John ran a hand through the back of his hair.


	6. Chapter 5

A/N - thanks for all the amazing and encouraging reviews. They are the inspiration for the story!

>>>>>>

"You might as well take it." John put the notebook from the evidence room in the middle of his desk.

"Have you read it?" Marcia Kelly asked.

"Yes."

"Cristian Vega said that it contains the details that they gave him on the ship when they rebuilt his identity from scratch. Things about his life, about the people in his life."

"And things he wrote after he came back to Llanview."

"Things about his wife."

"About his entire life." John turned and looked out the window.

"You said you would cooperate."

"You said we were going to find her. Instead you're in my office harassing me about my…. This isn't saving her!"

"Do you need to save her?"

John slammed his burned palm down on the desk. The pain shot up his arm and he grinned with it. His eyes glittered as he looked at the profiler.

"Am I suspect?"

"No."

"Then stop questioning me as if I am and let's find these sons a bitches and get the job done."

The two law enforcement officers eyed each other for a moment. With a curt nod, Marcia sat down and pulled out a leather portfolio. She opened it and took out a sheaf of papers and held them out to John.

He took it and began to read it. As he got to the second page he sat down in his chair. He was oblivious to the blood staining the bandage on his hand.

Marcia bent her head down and began to write longhand in the portfolio.

After ten minutes John, still holding the sheets tightly, looked up.

He watched the profiler work. His face was pale and sweat had broken out on his forehead. When she didn't look up he stood up and went to fetch fresh coffee.

Over by the coffee machine he found Natalie's green and purple mug. He had bought it for her not long after she had started working at the LPD. He toyed with the lip of the mug and thought back to when he gave it to her.

"_Here's the file you wanted on the Jackson case." Natalie held the file out. _

_John looked up from his computer monitor and took the file. "Thanks." _

"_It's my job." Natalie winked and went to turn around._

"_Wait." _

_Natalie turned around and looked at him quizzically. _

_John smiled and let his eyes skim over her body. She was wearing a black sweater that showed a nice hint at her cleavage and a flounced skirt that skimmed her thighs and danced with her every movement. When his gaze returned to her face she was smiling knowingly at him. He answered her smile with one of his own when she leaned over, a hand on the desk, and asked him if there was something else he needed. He got a nice eyeful of her beautiful breasts and the black bra that looked suspiciously like the one he had gotten a handful one fateful day._

"_I got something for you."_

"_Do ya now?" Natalie stood up and crossed her arms. She tilted her head and didn't hide her suggestive look._

_He knew she was just teasing him, but he felt himself flush and fumble as he reached into his desk._

"_Here." He pushed a box towards her across his desk._

_Natalie laughed and ripped the makeshift paper. She opened the box and pulled out the ceramic mug. She turned it around in her hand and laughed when she read the "cops do it with cuffs" written on the side._

"_If anyone asks, you didn't get that from me."_

"_Do you think human resources would approve of this mug in the squad room?" Natalie chuckled and held the mug to her stomach._

"_That's why you didn't get it from me. Tell them the Commissioner gave it to you."_

"_Thanks, John." Natalie said, suddenly serious._

"_It's just a coffee mug."_

"_I know." _

John let out the breath he had been holding and filled the mug with coffee and got a paper cup for Special Agent Kelly.

He realized as he walked to his office that she had never asked him why he had gotten her the mug.

>>>>>>

"What do you think, Lieutenant?"

"I agree there are two killers. I think one or both of them have a personal vendetta against me. I think they mean to use Natalie as bait." John stopped, unable to go on.

"But first they want to make her suffer for surviving three of their murder attempts. Then they will get to you for stopping the last two."

John stood behind his desk with one hand on his hip. With the other he rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn't, wouldn't look Agent Kelly in the eye as he fought off the images of Natalie being tortured. Exhaustion dogged his heels again, but he knew the dreams would only get worse. Then they might get real.

"They're white males. Blue collar upbringing. One is older and exerts influence over the other one. The older one dictates the course of action. The younger one carries out the plans, it makes him feel powerful even though he is just following orders. When he figures out he is not in control, he will turn on the older one."

"Once you got in their way," she continued. "They got angry. They were invincible, successful. They turned their sights on Natalie and on you."

"Evangeline was another weapon against me. To punish me for interfering."

"They're vulnerable now because they've broken the pattern. They are outside their comfort zone, which is part of why they haven't gotten in contact with us yet. I believe it's not because they've killed their bait, but because of that."

"She is alive." John got up from his desk chair and paced in front of the couch where Special Agent Kelly was seated. "She's alive."

"They're trying to figure out their next move. It will involve you. They will lure you once they figure out their next steps. I think the kidnapping in the gym was done spur of the moment. They didn't expect you to find them in time."

"And that I did makes it all the more a game for them." John unconsciously rubbed his burned hand over his heart.

"I think there's more. You've been looking at Ron Walsh. Marcie's brother. He had knowledge and access to the journals."

"He fits the profile of the younger guy that I just read."

"And he has the added motive of taking Natalie because of the personal angle."

"Very personal." John's voice was cold.

"We can try to enlist his help; serial killers often like to assist the cops in their search. Then I can get him into a room and question him."

John looked at her with an evil grin on his face. He knew how it felt to have this woman burrow her way into your head. He wished that on Ron Walsh.

>>>>>>>>>

It had been two hours and Special Agent Kelly, BSU was still in the room with Ron Walsh trying to crack through his carefully orchestrated mask. It was started on the pretense of questions about the original Killing Club, Marcie's friends and growing up. It was quickly apparent that Ron knew he was a suspect since John had questioned him before.

Before the first hour was up, he demanded a lawyer. One was immediately assigned to him from legal aid. There was no way this wasn't going to be done by the book. Hugh, one of the assistant district attorneys was also sitting in the interview. They might as well have been flies on the wall as Marcia Kelly's laser focus on Ron made them irrelevant.

The man was seduced against his will. Part of it, John noticed, was because of Ron's absolute arrogance that he wouldn't get caught. But he had already given up more than he or his lawyer realized and he wasn't listening to his lawyer's counsel to put a stop to questioning.

Eventually he would, but with any luck he would have incriminated himself irretrievably and then they could make a deal for Natalie's safety.

Bo came walking into the observation room. He had left briefly to calm his father, Asa, who was going ballistic that his granddaughter hadn't been found yet.

"Asa okay?" John asked, never taking his eyes from the two-way mirror.

"Upset. Clint showed up to take him back to Carlotta's diner where everyone is holding vigil."

"Did we get the warrant?"

"Yeah. Do you want to go with them?"

John thought for a moment. "I'll go. We should bring a DA with us."

"Agreed. I'll call Nora and get someone sent."

"I'm going to nail this bastard. And I'm going to bring Natalie home to us."

Bo nodded and followed John out of the dark room.

It was hers. John wanted to touch the scarf, but it had to be bagged for evidence. He closed his eyes and remembered when she had worn it to the office. It was new she told him when he had asked.

"_John McBain are you watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy or something?" Natalie looked up at John who was sitting on the corner of her desk._

"_What? A guy can't notice fashion on a pretty lady now and again?" John smiled, keeping his eyes mostly on his files but watching for her reaction out of the corner of his eyes. _

"_Sure. Anytime." Natalie kept her eyes on him._

_He glanced up and their eyes caught, connected, captured. No words were said for a long moment._

"_Thanks for the file." John cleared his throat._

"_Anytime."_

_He saw the desire and longing in her eyes. He knew the same was reflecting out of his eyes. He stood up and walked back to his office. He heard her sigh behind him. He saved his for when his door was closed behind him._

How had Ron gotten the scarf? Had she left it here? Had she left it in his car? Had he taken it when he took her?

He pointed one of his men to the scarf and continued to look around.

"We found something, Sir." One of his men called from where he was searching through computer records.

John strode over and knelt down to look at the screen.

Cache records showing searches for various locations in the Llanview metropolitan area. Searches for schools, sporting fields, theatres and greenhouses. Searches for knives from ecommerce sites, and not the kitchen kind.

"Print it all out."

John pulled out his phone, the sting of his palm was a welcome bite he was used to now, and pressed Marcie's number. After asking her to meet him at the station he called Michael. She shouldn't be alone when she found out her brother was one of the killers.

Now, they had to find Natalie.

She'd been gone for two weeks.

It was a game.

There was enough evidence for a search warrant, but not enough to arrest him. They had to let him go and he was being watched 24X7 both by the cops and by Asa's private investigators. Antonio was also taking shifts to find his sister-in-law.

RJ offered to have him roughed up, but John had to reluctantly decline.

Ron was no longer leaving his room at the Angel Square Hotel. Roxy was being kept off site so that she didn't attack the man suspected of taking her adopted daughter, again.

Rex was helping to run down all of his construction buddies. Gathering sites where he had worked that Natalie could be being held.

And John McBain still wasn't sleeping more than a few hours at a time.

As Agent Kelly had predicted, lures had started to trickle in after Ron was questioned. Lures to one site or another.

The last one had almost broken John. Or maybe it had.

He was sitting on the couch in his office, his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face. His brother Michael was sitting on the floor next to him, his back leaning on the couch. They had just gotten back from a high school in a neighboring town where a makeshift grave had been hidden under the bleachers.

John's heart had frozen at the site that was just the right size to bury Natalie's lifeless body.

He didn't let anyone else near the site. He had his men and the local force holding a perimeter and searching for suspects. With his bare hands he dug into the dirt as the note that he had received that afternoon had demanded. The first thing he had felt after digging for ten minutes was a shirt.

A shirt that matched the piece of material he had found at the docks the night of the awards dinner. The night she had been taken. He couldn't smell her on it, only dirt.

The color of shirt Evangeline and Rex had confirmed she had been wearing.

But there was no body. He kept digging. Nothing.

Then he heard a ring.

It wasn't his phone. It was coming from the dirt.

He scrambled through the dirt until he found the phone. Natalie's phone. Still programmed with her musical ring and her purple wallpaper. His heart pounded.

The last time he had heard it was in his room after he had told her just go.

And she had gone.

These flashes of memory were happening more often. He would see something that reminded him of her and there would be a memory. Many were memories he would review in the dark of night. Others were things he hadn't even realized he had remembered. She was imprinted in his mind. He could hardly remember a time before her. Then he would think of Caitlin and the guilt would almost cripple him. He wasn't supposed to put her that far away. Then he'd remember asking Natalie that very question – how far and where should he put Caitlin and it would start all over again.

He answered the telephone.


	7. Chapter 6

"John McBain you got in our way too many times."

"Where is she?" John hissed into Natalie's phone. In his hand he still clutched the cloth from her shirt.

"Turn around. Look underneath the third step of the bleacher."

Then the phone call ended and he heard a beeping as the phone's battery was drained. He knew they were on the call too short a time for his men to triangulate the call.

He dropped the phone on the ground and walked over to the bleachers. He pretended not to notice that his hands shook.

He knelt down and felt around under the third bleacher from the bottom as he couldn't see in the dim light. His heart pounded as he felt something. Crisp tape. He shimmied his body underneath and took a closer look. Something was taped there. It looked like the back of a photograph. He held back his first instinct to tear the item down and see what it was and took out a pocket knife and carefully pried it from its place. He wanted to preserve any evidence they might have left – fingerprints, DNA. Something.

His stomach was in knots as it came loose into the handkerchief he held over his palm.

He put his head down on the dirt and took a deep breath before looking.

Something in his body clicked off. Something else sped up. His head swam and he broke out into a cold sweat.

It was her. Natalie. His Natalie.

She was lying on concrete. Her face was bruised, blood dribbled from the head wound she had gotten in the woods.

The day he told her he loved her. Out loud.

Before he took it back.

Denied it.

And now.

Her eyes were closed.

She was pale underneath the blood and bruises.

Her shirt was torn open.

Her right hand lay palm up at her side. Her fingers were half closed into a fist. Her nails were ragged. Their tips bloodied.

Her other hand was clenched over her stomach.

It was so pale against the maroon stain spreading over the white skin underneath.

Blood.

A gun shot wound.

At the bottom of the photo were the words, written in marker. "Bang, Bang. She's dead."

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

John didn't feel the hands pulling him out from under the bleachers. He didn't notice Bo's terror as he knelt down next to Detective Paglino and his brother Michael McBain.

Detective Paglino took the photo from John's unresisting hand and put it into an evidence bag before handing it over to Bo.

Michael put his arm around John's shoulders.

"John. John. Come on bro."

John couldn't hear or see him. All he could see was Natalie's lifeless body. The blood. Caitlin. Another one lost.

Michael had gotten a glimpse of the photo, but he put his own pain aside as he brought John to a standing position and guided him towards the police cars in front of the school.

They left Bo standing in the field next to the half dug hole in the ground holding the picture of his niece's lifeless corpse.

Lights from the police cars flashed over the faces of the McBain brothers as they got closer.


	8. Chapter 7

A/N: A green apple can signify man's redemption as it is the opposite of the red apple that symbolize's man's fall (biblical). Thanks everyone for the amazing feedback!

>>>>>>>>>

John was sitting on the couch in his office, his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face. His brother Michael was sitting on the floor next to him, his back leaning on the couch. Tears were also streaming down Michael's cheeks.

"She can't be dead, John. She can't." Michael's words had no conviction of truth. He wanted to believe. He turned to his brother and put a hand on his arm.

John didn't respond.

Michael turned and looked. It was then he realized.

"You love her."

John looked up. Tear slid down his face into his open palms. His burnt palm was unbandaged and the salty tears stung the oozing burns. They were full of dirt from the makeshift grave he had pawed at in vain.

Michael looked with a doctor's eye at the wound, but his thoughts were still filled with the picture of Natalie's lifeless and bloody body.

"You loved her."

"I loved her."

John's words were just a whisper, but they echoed in the unnaturally quiet office.

Michael grasped John's wrist and pulled the wounded palm towards him. "Let me take care of this."

"It doesn't matter." John's breathing was still broken and ragged.

Michael uncurled John's fingers. Tears were drying on his face as he gratefully slipped into the disassociated state required by his profession.

John tried to pull his arm away.

Michael's grip tightened.

"Are my boys fighting again?" Eve McBain said from the doorway.

"Oh, your hand John." She took John's arm out of Michael's grasp, put her fingers around John's wrist and stroked his wet cheek. "Let your brother take care of this."

"She's dead, Mom."

John's gravelly voice sent chills down Eve's spine. "I don't believe that and neither do you," she said firmly.

"There was a picture."

"And if you saw a photo with me with Elvis would you believe it or think that I went to one of those booths on the boardwalk?"

John closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

"Do you feel her, John?" Eve leaned closer to ask her question.

John opened his eyes and looked at her in surprise.

"I knew from the moment I met her she was meant for you. Anyone with half a brain watching you two together can see the connection. I heard those words from your own mouth."

Michael flushed and looked at the floor at his mother's observation. He had tried so hard to push John away from Natalie. Evangeline hid his brother's pain. Natalie brought it to the light of day. It made _him_ uncomfortable to see it.

"I'm a selfish ass."

The other two McBains ignored Michael's words.

John kept his wet, blue eyes locked with his mothers. He felt her fingers sending warmth through his cold body.

"Do you feel her, Johnny?"

At the sound of the childhood name he felt something thaw inside him. Something that had been there for longer than he could even remember.

"She's not gone." John's ragged whisper was tinged with relief.

Eve hugged her son. Her heart broke a little at how thin he felt.

"Now." Eve pulled back and put her hands on John's cheeks. "Go with your brother and get your hand taken care of. Then you're coming back with me to eat and sleep. You too." This she directed at Michael.

"Yes, Mommy." Michael shrugged his shoulders and gave his brother a half smile before getting up off the floor.

>>>>>>>>

"Any word, Johnny Mac?" Roxy rushed out from behind the counter as soon as she saw the McBains enter the hotel.

John and Michael shared a brief look. What should they say? Eve jumped into the breach.

"He hasn't found her yet. But she's going to be fine. Right now, though, he needs to eat and get some sleep."

Nigel came up behind Roxy and put his hand on her shoulder sending her his silent strength.

Michael looked away. He wasn't as convinced as his brother and mother that Natalie would be okay.

"I should go back to the station," John said after Nigel led an agitated Roxy away.

"You'll do no such thing. You will be called when they have something. Let someone else carry the load for a while."

John looked down at the white bandage wrapped around his hand. Spots of blood had seeped through. Like Natalie in the photo. He was frozen.

"I want her home." This time the words were laden with the feelings he had finally admitted to Michael in his office. After he thought it was too late.

Eve put her arm around her son's waist and led his unwilling body up the stairs to his room.

John woke with a start. His heart was pounding. He looked across his apartment. The door was still closed.

In his dream she had been standing in the open doorway. "Someone order take out?" She smiled and held up a bag of food from Rodi's.

She was wearing a turquoise shirt. He could never resist her in turquoise.

He glanced at the clock and was surprised to find he had been asleep for ten hours. He grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand and called in.

After a terse conversation he put the phone in his lap and ran a hand over his stubbled cheek. The FBI had confirmed that the photo was doctored. It was another sick ploy.

But why? Why hadn't they killed her? Why were they playing with him, with Marcie and with the LPD?

He picked his telephone up and called Special Agent Kelly. This time he was going to be the one asking the questions.

>>>>>>>>

John bit into the green apple his mother had pressed on him when he had left the hotel. He felt infinitely more confident than he had been in two weeks that Natalie would be all right. He had regained his ability to compartmentalize his fears and the disturbing images of Natalie being hurt or scared. He wasn't quite ready to do cartwheels, but he felt himself slipping into the zone where everything became clearer. Where images were acute and leaps of logic flowed through him.

He walked through the squad room past Natalie's desk. She would, he vowed, he sitting there again soon. And he would make sure there were fresh flowers on that desk every week – from him.

He picked up the profile from his desk and keyed in on the points that had been tumbling around in his mind since his long, hot shower. There was something there. Something he had missed before.

"Come in," he called out when there was a knock on his door.

"You look a lot better than the last time I saw you." Special Agent Marcia Kelly sat down in the chair in front of John's desk.

"I feel a lot better." He looked up from the profile. He wasn't smiling, but neither did he look as grim as he had before.

"You said you had some questions for me."

"Where is Cristian Vega?"

"In a safe house in Miami."

"Really? So where is Natalie Vega?"

When Marcia didn't respond he leaned forward and fixed her with a piercing look. "Is Natalie Vega in Miami with her husband?"


	9. Chapter 8

A/N: thanks for all of the amazing feedback! Hope this doesn't suck.

>>>>>>>

Natalie came walking through the open sliding glass door. The sun was shining brightly behind her, lighting up her flame red hair and making the drops of water on her tanned skin sparkle.

Cristian was right behind her and slid his hands around her waist.

Natalie closed her eyes and bit her lip. Cristian glided one of his hands down her stomach and slid his fingers underneath the turquoise cloth at her hip. His other hand made a slow trail of wet up to where he cupped her full breast.

Natalie held herself stiffly as her husband's fingers circled her sensitive nipple through the wet bikini top.

Cristian began to kiss her neck and slid his fingers up her body to her back where he unhooked the clasp. As it slid from her shoulders he put his hand underneath and cupped her now naked breasts. He pressed his arousal against her back.

"I want to make love to you."

Natalie bit her lip harder and laid her head back on his shoulder.

"Kiss me."

Natalie turned her head at his command and welcomed his lips and tongue into a long practiced dance.

Cristian's grip on her breasts tightened and he pulled her more firmly against him.

"You're hurting me." Natalie whispered against his lips.

As if struck, Cristian backed off. His quick movement sent Natalie off balance and she stumbled and fell on the floor, her sprained ankle giving out under her.

She was on all fours on the kitchen floor, her hair falling over her face. Her bikini top discarded next to her. She was breathing heavily both from shock and pain.

Cristian was also breathing heavily and obviously trying to rein in his temper.

"You've been here two weeks, when the hell are you going to get over this?" he demanded. When she didn't respond he sighed and walked around her and held out a hand.

Natalie looked up at him, her own glare fierce. She took his hand and allowed him to help her stand. She limped over to the couch in the sun room and sat down.

Cristian sighed and went to the freezer to get some ice.

He handed her the towel and sat across from her while she put her ankle on the coffee table and applied the home remedy.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm tired of your sorries." Natalie looked up at him. "I need to call and let people know I'm all right!"

"You mean McBain," Cristian accused.

"I mean my mother who has a heart condition. I mean my father. I mean my family. My Uncle Bo. Roxy. Rex. God, Cristian. They think I'm being held hostage by a serial killer or even dead."

"It's safer if they think you're dead."

"Like your own family is safer thinking your dead? Like I was?"

"I'm a killer Natalie. It's better that they don't know I'm alive." Cristian paced restlessly in front of the floor to ceiling windows.

"And I'm supposed to stay dead with you?"

"You're my wife."

"I want to go home. I want you to come with me."

"Your home is with me."

Natalie sighed and leaned back on the couch. They'd had this argument over and over again over the past two weeks. Ever since she had gotten over the shock of waking up in this beach house and finding the John Doe impersonating her husband standing over her. An imposter telling her again he was her husband. He went on to tell her things that only Cristian Vega could know about his childhood. About their first meeting. About how he loved her. She still didn't believe him. Not until he told her about the DNA test. About the promise he had extracted from an unwilling John McBain.

Suddenly all the things that John had said and done over the past six months made sense.

Over the next few days she learned how the government was using Cristian to get to the people responsible for his brainwashing and the murder and attempted murder of the Santi heirs. That he had never planned to come back to Llanview of let her or his family know he was really alive. Then he found out that she had been targeted by a serial killer and kidnapped and he had insisted that he would not cooperate unless she was brought to him.

Cristian wanted her to never go back. She would be presumed dead and they could live out the life of their dreams.

Natalie didn't tell him she didn't know what those dreams were anymore, but she did tell him that she couldn't have a life without her family around her.

She told him that most of her life had been a lie and she would not go back to that.

He wouldn't listen. Nor would the people protecting them. She was just as trapped here as she had been with Evangeline in that basement. At least she knew that Evangeline was safe. They had told her that much.

"I need to go home. I need to make sure my mother is ok." She had to try and reason with him one more time. "If you truly love me you'll let me go home and come with me."

Cristian clenched his hands and rounded on his wife. "I'm not going back there."

"Then I don't see how we can have a future together." Natalie stood up and turned and limped away. Tears pricked her eyes. She never thought she would speak this way to Cristian. But everything about this situation was unbelievable.

"Do you really think you can forgive him for lying to you?"

Natalie turned around. "I'm not even sure I can forgive you." With a sad look on her face she headed for her bedroom. Once there she locked the door. It was the only freedom she had. Though she knew if he had wanted to, Cristian could break down the door and claim what he felt was rightfully his. Her.

>>>>>>>

Her sleep was restless. She was tossing and tangled in the white sheets of her bed. It was hot inside the room because she preferred a fresh heat to a manufactured cold. She was also soothed by the sounds of the waves. It sounded like being back home in AC the times when they lived near the beach; or the nights she had to be away from home and slept near, or under, the boardwalk.

Usually the sounds soothed her, but it wasn't working tonight. The heat just made her feverish and the sounds permeated her dreams.

_She was walking in the sliding glass door from the beach. He hair hung in red clumps around her head. She was laughing and trailing her yellow towel behind her. She could hear his rushing footsteps as he rushed after her. _

_With a laugh Natalie dropped the towel, hoping to slow him down. She could hear the rush of the ocean, but maybe that was just her heart. She rushed into the living room and up the stairs. Instead of heading for her bedroom she ran for his. _

_She should have known she couldn't get away. He would always find her. _

_He grabbed her just inside the doorway. She heard him kick it shut behind him, but she didn't care. Not with his hands on her body. Where his fingers touched she burned and she could swear she heard a sizzle of the ocean water drying on her skin. He slipped one hand under the turquoise material at her hip. His other hand brushed the hair off her neck to make way for his lips._

"_You know," he whispered into her neck. "The water in Jersey is saltier."_

With a gasp Natalie awakened and sat up in bed.

>>>>>>>

"Answer the damn question!" John McBain growled at the FBI agent sitting across from him.

"You'd better do that lady. You better tell him where my granddaughter is our you'll..." Asa Buchanan stormed into the office without knocking.

"Pa. Let me. What my father means, Agent Kelly, is that if the FBI has been withholding information regarding the whereabouts of my niece not only is the FBI going to reimburse the City of Llanview for its efforts to find Natalie Vega, but it will face the mother of all lawsuits from the Buchanan lawyers on behalf of Natalie's many, many suffering family members."

"Not to mention the politicians that we so generously support will come down hard on your damn federal bureau of idiots!" Asa threatened.

"Now, I'll ask you again." John was standing now. "Does the FBI know where Natalie Vega is?"

Marcia Kelly looked around the office at the angry faces crowding her.

John had to hand it to her, she didn't lose her cool or look remotely intimidated.

"Is she in Miami with Cristian?" Bo demanded.

John had filled Bo and Asa in on what he knew prior to Agent Kelly's appearance.

"Yes."

"You bitch!" John was both relieved and furious at the same time. The pressure on his chest and the knot in his stomach eased. She was all right. She might hate him for the rest of his life, but she was all right.

Bo looked at John in shock that he would be the one to say it. Asa looked impressed.

"Did you stage the kidnappings?"

"No. We just took advantage of the situation to extract Mrs. Vega and take her to her husband."

"Why the hell on God's name did you let us believe all this time that my granddaughter was kidnapped by a maniac?" Asa's face was red with fury.

"Because Cristian was refusing to cooperate unless you got his wife," John answered for her.

"That is correct," Marcia confirmed.

"Were you ever going to tell us?" Bo asked, certain he already knew the answer.

"That was undetermined."

"What about the photograph?"

"We didn't have anything to do that. I was actually sent here to help you catch the serial killers."

"And to keep us off the scent of where my niece was. Get the hell out of my department."

"No. Wait. I want to talk to her and make sure she's all right." John held out his telephone. "Call her."

"I'm afraid that's not possible."

"It better damn well be possible or I'm going to call that cowboy in the White House and make it possible!" Asa threatened.

"Could everyone leave Agent Kelly and I alone for a few minutes?"

"I normally don't advocate hitting women, but if you have to beat it out of her I'll pay for your lawyer!" Asa yelled as Bo pushed him out of the office and closed the door behind them.

"If you don't tell us, someone else will. I promise you that." John still held out his phone.

"If that were the case someone would have told you already."

"Then why admit it now? You could have kept us the official story and disappeared."

"Because Mrs. Vega is not happy with the situation. She doesn't want to go along with the deception, nor does she want to disappear with her husband into the witness protection program. And because we are very close to toppling the people behind everything."

"How close?" John asked.

"Days. Maybe hours."

"Are they in danger?"

"Very likely."

"Are they really in Miami?"

"No."

"Where are they?"

"I can't tell you that."

"I need to talk to her."

John and Marcia just looked at each other silently for a long moment.

"I'll see what I can do." Marcia turned to leave.

"What was all that questioning about my feelings for Natalie Vega?"

"I figured it was the least I could while I was here and you would expect it."

"What do you mean the least you could do?"

"Helping ease that battle you have going up there."

"I need to talk to her."

"I know." Marcia walked out the door.

John turned towards the window. He put his hand on the wall and leaned forward. She was all right. She was with Cristian. She knew he had lied.


	10. Chapter 9

A/N: Okay, okay, this is a defense. I got some feedback that Jolie fans character assassinate Cristian. I respectfully disasgree with that and I definitely don't think how I've characterized Cristian in one part is inaccurate. He was kidnapped, brainwashed, programmed to kill. He was angry last time he was on the show and abandoned, in effect, by John McBain and law enforcement in general on the show. He was then in prison. It has an impact on a person and to ignore that would be irresponsible as a writer on my part.

That said - thanks for all the feedback.

Part 9  
>>>>>>>>>

"Who are you?" Cristian asked as a woman was let into the beach house.

Natalie just stood by the windows in the living room with her arms crossed, barely paying attention to the arrival of another fed.

"I'm Special Agent Marcia Kelly. I'm with the behavioral science unit." She stood in the middle of the tiles foyer onto which the living room opened.

"A profiler. Why are you here?" Cristian asked.

"I've worked up the profiles on the people who kidnapped you Mr. Vega, as well as your wife."

At that Natalie turned around to face the red-haired woman. She walked over to stand next to Cristian. He put his hand on her back.

"What do you mean? Our cases aren't related, are they?" Cristian asked.

"She means she's come from Llanview where she lied to everyone about where I was." Natalie's voice shook with rage.

"You are right, Natalie, may I call you Natalie? However, one of the officers there figured out that we had you and the proverbial cat is out of the bag."

"John?" Natalie whispered, her heart pounding.

"Yes. Why don't we sit down."

"Who knows I'm all right? I want to speak to my mother. How is she? She has a heart condition you know."

"Let's sit down." She began to walk into the living room.

"Answer me, first. How is my mother? How is Vicki Buchanan?" Tears thickened Natalie's voice.

"She's fine. She probably knows by now that you are safe with us."

"Who told her?"

"I'm not sure, Commissioner Buchanan was going to make sure that it was done, despite our wishes."

Natalie closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Cristian stroked her hair and led her the seating area where Agent Kelly was already making herself comfortable.

"I want to speak to her. I want to go home."

Cristian's expression hardened.

"Leaving is not possible right now. Maybe soon, but not right now."

"I need to talk to my mother. And my brother. And Roxy. And my sister, is she back?"

Agent Kelly looked at her speculatively.

"You must have some sort of encrypted phone and I won't say where we are."

"You haven't told us why you're here," Cristian pointed out.

"Part of my qualifications for being a profiler is a doctorate degree in psychology. Since I'm already familiar with the case I was asked to come here and talk to you about your options once the Peroni family is taken down, which we hope will be any day now."

"Options? What do you mean options?" Natalie asked. "Why can't we just go home to Llanview?"

"That is one of your options, but if you do that we can't guarantee your safety. There will always be others filling the vacuum this bust creates. There may be people seeking revenge or to prove their power by cleaning up this business."

"But they may just leave us alone since we didn't do anything! They took Cristian and made him cooperate, but he was never one of them." Natalie was angry.

"In fact you resisted cooperating at the end, Cristian. Even against what was incredibly deep brainwashing."

"My love for my wife got me through." Cristian took Natalie's hand.

"We can set you up in the witness protection program, new identities, new place. But then you can never go back to your old life. To your families."

"That's what I want to do," Cristian said.

"But it's too late. People already know where I am and that I'm with Cristian, don't they?" Natalie said.

"They will know you are alive, but you won't have contact with them and they won't know where you are. I need to make sure you are really prepared for that before you decide."

"I'm ready."

"We haven't even scratched the surface of the brainwashing that was done to you, Cristian."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Cristian stood up and glared at her.

"You've had your life ripped from you for almost two years, one reason I can see you would choose to continue that is if you're afraid that your brainwashing might cause you to harm them."

"I'll be fine as long as I have my wife."

"Maybe you and I should talk in private, Cristian."

"No. I want my wife here!"

"I'm going to give Natalie the opportunity to speak to her mother."

Cristian scowled at the obvious manipulation.

"Cristian. I need to speak to her and you need to talk to someone." Natalie's voice was hesitant. They hadn't spoken about him seeing anyone since he was in Llanview and was vehemently opposed to it.

Cristian looked at Natalie, seeing her worry his expression softened. "All right, baby."

Natalie stood up and followed the plain clothes agent waiting for her at the entryway. She followed him up to her bedroom where she was handed a cellular phone that she was told was encrypted and untraceable. She turned it over in her hands, but she couldn't see how it was different than any other phone. As she was studying the phone it rang.

A smile broke out on her face and she opened it quickly and put it to her ear.

"Mom? Are you all right?"

"Oh, honey!" Vicki cried over the telephone.

"They took me and they wouldn't let me call you or come home. I was so worried about you? Are you all right?"

"Oh, Natalie. I'm so much better now that I know you're all right!"

Natalie lay down on the bed and fought back her tears.

>>>>>>>>

"You're afraid that you will hurt them, but you are also afraid that you don't know who to be around them after trying to kill your brother."

"Don't forget Tico Santi. I killed him, not that it was much of a loss." Cristian was bouncing his legs and his hands were moving in an agitated manner.

"And prison. Prison had to be hard for you the few months you were there."

Cristian rubbed his head.

"How often do you have the headaches?"

He stopped his ministrations and looked up at her. "I still get them, I don't know, a couple of times a day."

"You don't like to take the painkillers the doctor prescribed?"

"I don't like drugs. I had enough of them on that ship."

"Are you talking to me because you want to help yourself or because you're afraid you're going to hurt Natalie? Or already have?"

>>>>>>>>>

"When are you coming home?" Vicki asked.

"I don't know. Maybe days, but." Natalie rubbed her eyes.

"But what, honey?"

"Cristian doesn't want to come back. He wants us to go into the witness protection program. He says that it's because he wants to make sure we're safe from this mob family that took him and programmed him to get rid of the Santi heirs."

"Of course he wants you safe."

"He doesn't understand how I feel. That I can't just disappear." Natalie paused and rolled over onto her back. "And I can't just pretend that the past couple of years haven't happened."

"How do you feel about him?"

"I love him. I do. But I'm so angry. At him. At what keeps happening to us." At John, she silently amended.

"What about John McBain?" Vicki zeroed in on her daughter's thoughts.

"I don't want to talk about him. He lied to me, I don't know how to feel about it. Cristian said he made him promise not to tell me for my own good. It's just...I don't want to talk about him." Natalie gripped the bed blanket and twisted it.

"He was quite devastated when he thought you were in danger, possibly dead. He was a big comfort to me."

"That's his job. I can't deal with him right now. It's Cristian I need to concentrate on. I don't know what to do. How to get through to him."

"Honey, you need to give yourselves time. Neither of you are the same people now. You've both been through so much."

Natalie's own tears fell as she heard the tears in Vicki's voice.

"Im sorry they let you believe I was kidnapped or dead. they wouldn't let me call."

"I know. This is not your fault. They tell me it's safer for you there."

"I miss you. And Roxy and Rex. I don't know if I can call them, please tell them I'm okay. Even if the FBI won't let you."

"All right, honey. They tell me I have to hang up. Remember that I love you."

"I love you, too." Natalie dropped the phone onto the bed and rolled over and cried into her pillow.

Sometime later she felt the bed dip and Cristian lay down next to her and take her into his arms. He didn't say anything, he just let her cry.

After a few minutes she looked up at him. "I love you Cristian. I do. But I need time, we need time."

"We've already lost enough time!" Cristian insisted.

"You're still angry, like you were when you came back to Llanview."

"Of course I'm angry at what they've done to us! What you're doing to us."

"Well you know what?" Natalie sat up and looked at him. "I'm angry too! For what they did to you and at you for lying to me. Were you ever going to tell me you were alive?"

"But not angry at McBain, I guess?" Cristian sneered.

"Of course I'm angry at him! I'm furious at him!" Natalie got up and looked for something to throw. "And I'm furious at you! Both of you conspiring to protect me like I'm some kind of child. Then you have me kidnapped and brought her and my family and friends think I'm still being held by a bunch of psycho killers."

"Furious is good." Cristian crossed his legs and leaned back on the headboard.

"It's good?" She demanded.

"Better than the ghost that's been walking around here, excuse the irony."

Natalie put her hands on her hips and glared at him. Taking in his amused countenance her fury began to temporarily recede and she climbed up the edge of the bed.

"The last time I saw you I was told you were an imposter and I thought I was so stupid I didn't know my own husband. I've grieved for you twice. I love you. And I want to go home. That's all I know right now."

"I love you, Natalie. But I don't know if I can go back."

Natalie began to cry again and she crawled up the bed to sit next to Cristian, careful to keep her sensitive ankle to the side. She put her hand on his cheek.

"What was done to you, you need to deal with. We need to deal with. And you should have your family with you."

"I've gotten counseling."

"Is it enough?"

"Sometimes i get so angry, even with you. The other day, I didn't mean for you to fall. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It was an accident. I know that you didn't mean to hurt me."

"But I felt satisfied that it happened."

"That's not you, Cristian. That's not who you are. That's what they have done to you."

"I don't know if that Cristian Vega can ever come back."

Just then, the telephone rang.

Startled, Natalie picked up the phone and opened it. She looked down as saw John's cell number. She looked back up at Cristian.


	11. Chapter 10

A/N - thanks for all the enthusiastic feedback!

Touching You 10?

John McBain sat in his desk chair looking at the slip of paper that he had found sitting in the middle of his desk when he returned from finding Roxy and telling her that Natalie was actually in the hands of the FBI rather than the Killing Club killers. It had taken a while to calm her hysterics. First relief, then fury at the Bureau. He related to both feelings.

On the note there were no words, only numbers. Nine digits. An encrypted number. Natalie.

He wanted to call, to hear her voice, to assure himself that she was all right. Even if she was angry at him. Even if she hung up on him and said she never wanted to hear from or see him again. Still, he didn't dial the open phone sitting in front of him on his desk.

There were so many things he wished he could go back and do over when it came to Natalie. Bringing her into the Flynn Walker case, for one. Allowing Cristian to come to Vegas. Letting her hang out with Paul Cramer when he had the power to stop that. Telling her he...

John's thoughts stopped.

Cristian. She was with Cristian. Her husband. The man she loved, like he loved Caitlin, and now she had another chance to be with him for the rest of her life. This, thankfully, would be much longer than he'd thought just a few hours ago.

It was just a telephone call. Confirmation for the report, if nothing else.

John leaned his elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes. Then, taking a deep breath he dialed the number he had already memorized.

It took a few rings before she answered. His heart pounded as he waited.

"Hi."

His heart stopped when he heard her voice and a lump of tears clogged his throat.

"Hey. I wanted to make sure you were all right." His voice was raspy with emotion.

He heard rustling in the background before she responded.

"I'm fine. I heard that you figured out what happened. I knew you would."

"It took me two weeks." Two really, really long difficult weeks as the dark circles under his eyes and the tremor in his hand attested.

"My mom said you were a big comfort to her during that time. Thank you for making sure she was okay."

"I didn't really do anything. If anything, she comforted me."

There was silence on the other end.

"I'm here with Cristian." This time, her voice was hard.

"That's good. That's where you should be." John's eyes went bleak, his face blank.

"Yes. It is." Her words were pointed. Angry.

There was silence on the line again, but for the first time it was not a comfortable silence.

He opened his mouth to speak, to say anything to fill the void when there was a pop on the other end of the phone.

Then he heard Natalie ask someone else, probably Cristian, "what was that?"

He heard three more pops and Cristian telling Natalie to get back.

"Natalie! What's going on?" John stood up.

"I think those were shots, gun shots. Cristian is looking."

"Get back, get back!" John heard Cristian yell at her.

"Was it shots...ow!" he heard Natalie yell.

With his free hand John dialed a number on his desk phone.

"What's going on."

He heard glass breaking in the background.

"In here. Go up!" he heard Cristian ordering her from close by.

"We're going into a crawl space in the attic," Natalie whispered into the phone.

"McBain, we're in Delaware. Cape Henlopen. On the eastern side of the park. Get my wife." Cristian barked into the phone.

Then he heard the sound of movement, of the phone being dropped.

"There's an attack on the damned safe house in Delaware you have Natalie and Cristian Vega in!" he said into the other phone. "Get people there now!"

"Cristian! Cristian! Where are you going?"

John ran out of his office to Bo's.

"Close the door now!"

"Where are you going?"

"Natalie, close it! Stay hidden until someone comes to find you. Me or someone from the FBI!"

"No! Cristian!"

"Natalie, now!"

He heard Natalie's ragged breathing. He knew Cristian must have left the phone for her. He heard the scrape and bang of the crawl space cover. He knew it was probably a hidden door, one standard in all Bureau safe houses. But if they found the house, they might know about it.

"Attack at the safe house!" John ran through Bo's office, knowing that Bo, and probably Rex, would be close behind.

He grabbed the first car available. "Natalie, talk to me!"

He started the car as Bo and Rex jumped in.

"I'm in the attic. Cristian didn't come up. I don't know where he is." Her breathing was ragged.

John heaved a sigh of relief when he heard her voice.

Rex grabbed the phone as they drove out of the LPD. Bo, meanwhile, had taken out his own phone.

"Where are we going, John?" Bo asked.

"Delaware. Cape Henlopen. East side. Beach." John was breathing hard as he put on the police light.

"Head to BE helipad," Bo said, closing his own phone. Then he grabbed the phone from Rex's resisting hand.

"Natalie. Can you turn off the sounds on the phone? If you can't turn the phone off. We'll try to call you back in fifteen minutes. We'll be there soon. We love you." Bo listened for a moment and then cut the connection.

"Why'd you tell her to turn it off?" Rex demanded.

"To conserve the battery. So they don't hear the phone beeping. In case they have a sensor with them," John rattled off.

"Oh." Rex said from the back seat. "Cool. A helicopter."

>>>>>>>

Natalie didn't know how long she had been hidden in the corner of the dark attic behind some boxes. She couldn't figure out the phone so she had to shut it off and she had no way to tell time. She was afraid to turn it on, in case it made sounds when it did so and someone heard it. Someone who she didn't want to know where she was.

Her ankle was throbbing and she was cold. The cold of shock and fear. She was all too familiar with it lately. She didn't hear anything or anyone in the house anymore. But she didn't know if they were just waiting her out. If she moved across the attic, surely they would hear her.

The quiet scared her even more because she didn't know if Cristian had gotten away to get help, had been taken or even killed. Again.

She pressed her hand over her mouth and nose. She didn't think she could survive losing Cristian again.

Suddenly, she head footsteps in the house again. She curled up even tighter.

John jumped out the helicopter and ran, head down, towards the house. There were black cars pulling up outside. They were obviously Bureau. He ran up to them, ID out. They had already known to expect him and he was quickly let through to enter the house with them. He surveyed the scene with a professional eye.

He saw a couple of bodies of plain clothes agents, looked like another of one of the raiders. There were broken glass and bullet holes in his path as he headed straight up the stairs. He grabbed one of the agents at the tope and demanded to know which room had the crawl space. He was pointed in the direction of the room at the furthest end of the hall.

As soon as he entered the room he knew she stayed here. It had her warmth. Her scent.

He began opening closets, looking for the tell tale mark on the back wall that told him that there was a hiding space above it. He found it in the third door. He moved the boxes and blankets that had been placed to hide it. He pulled a pen flashlight out of his pocket and lit up the carefully cut hideaway that they must have shown Cristian. He propped his feet on the wall and edged his way up the shelf. He pushed the cut out up and levered himself in.

"Natalie. It's me John. Where are you?"

He crawled into the tight space and looked in both directions.

"Natalie? Where are you?"

He heard whimper from a dark corner and he crawled towards it.

He pushed the boxes aside and found her curled up in the corner. Her eyes were closed. He put his hand on her. She was breathing. Warm. Alive.

"Hey. Hey. Oh God. It's all right. Natalie." He crawled forward and pulled her into his arms. "Oh God." His voice was thick with emotion.

She woke up as he embraced her. She stiffened and began to fight. He smiled and pressed her closer.

"Hey. It's me, John. You're safe."


	12. Chapter 11

Touch 11

Natalie was startled as he pulled her into his lap in the dark crawl space. Then she began to fight.

A big grin broke out across his face. She was definitely alive. And kicking. He'd never felt such a profound sense of relief.

"Hey. It's me, John. You're safe."

She stopped struggling against his hold.

"John?" Natalie tried to see his face in the dark, but all she could see were his eyes sparkling. She reached a hand up to feel his face, to confirm it was him.

"You haven't shaved in a while."

John laughed and put his head down on top of hers, his body shaking with laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"That's the first thing you say to me after I." John broke off and took a shuddering breath.

Natalie moved her hand up his face.

"Are you crying?" she asked.

John took a deep breath and it was then she noticed him trembling against her.

"John?"

"Give me a moment, all right?" his raspy voice in her ear sent shivers down her spine. "Less than four hours ago I thought you were dead."

'I guess it bothered you?"

"Bothered me? Bothered me?" Oh, god!" John laughed and put his hands on her face and tilted her head up so that her lips were just beneath his. "Bothered me!"

He pressed his lips against her, just a touch, a slide. A taste. Then they melted against each other. Lips parted, arms held fast, breathing quickened.

"Natalie! Natalie!"

Rex's yell penetrated the dark cocoon in which they were temporarily separated from the rest of the world.

Natalie pushed John away and scrambled of his lap.

"Are you all right?" John asked, his breathing heavy. He smoothed down his rumpled hair instead of reaching out to grab Natalie like he wanted to.

"Yeah. Let's get out of here."

"I thought I heard you whimper. Are you hurt?"

"Whimper? Oh, that was our friendly FBI mouse."

"A mouse? And that didn't scare you?" John sounded amused.

"Mice came with the territory in the places Roxy and I lived. If I had stayed afraid I would have expired a long time ago."

John felt a pang that she had to learn to live with mice.

"Natalie!" Bo's voice joined Rex.

"Come on. Let's go." Natalie crawled past him, the phone in her hand.

>>>>>>>

Rex helped Natalie climb down and then he trapped her in a death grip of a hug.

Natalie held him back and smiled at Uncle Bo who was looking relieved behind him.

John hopped down behind them.

"Where's Cristian?" Natalie asked.

"We haven't found him." Bo sounded uncomfortable.

"Let's go downstairs. He must be here." Natalie pulled out of Rex's embrace and took Bo's hand. She squeezed back as she limped, just a little, past him.

"Are you hurt, Natty?" Rex asked.

"My ankle is a bit sore. From before. Come on." Natalie rushed out of the room.

"Was he?" John asked Bo cryptically.

Bo shook his head and went to follow Natalie.

"You okay, man?" Rex asked John, noticing the red eyes.

"Yeah. Let's get downstairs."

"Are you going to tell her?"

"Tell her what?" John tried to pass Rex.

"That you love her." Rex put his hand on John's arm.

"She's looking for her husband." John's voice was hard.

"Yeah, but she loves you."

John just looked at Rex, but didn't say anything. Then he shook off Rex's grip and walked out of the room.

Rex just sighed and followed.

>>>>>>>>

"Don't go in there." Bo stopped Natalie from going into the kitchen.

"Why? Is he...hurt?"

"He's not in there. We haven't found him anywhere in the house."

Natalie looked around worriedly as she followed Bo into the living room, which appeared to be the only room without signs of a gun and other kinds of battle.

John, Rex and two suited agents followed them into the living and closed the door.

"We can't stay here much longer," John said as soon as Natalie and Rex were seated.

"Where's Cristian?" This she directed at the agents. They didn't respond. She scowled and looked at her Uncle.

"They don't know, honey." Bo sat down on the arm of the couch next to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Did they take him?" Natalie asked worriedly.

"We don't know that yet."

"What about that profiler woman?"

"What profiler?" John asked, looking at the agents.

"Agent Kelly. We haven't found her easier. Her car is gone."

John cursed under his breath.

"So they might have left together?" Natalie asked, hopefully.

"When was the last time you saw her?" one of the agents asked.

"Before I spoke to my mother. I left her and Cristian down here talkiing. Then he came upstairs. He was with me when John called."

Rex's brows lifted and looked at John, but he uncharacteristically didn't say anything.

"So she may have left before they got here," Bo surmised.

"Wouldn't they have found her on the way out? There's only one road here that I've seen," Natalie said. "We need to find them."

"We need to get out of here. Did you get the package?" John asked the agents. One of them nodded and handed John a bulky envelope.

"What is that?" Natalie asked.

"Cash. We keep it in all safe houses, just in case."

"In case of what? How could they have found us here? It's supposed to be a safe house isn't it?"

"Yes. And only a few people in the Bureau know about it." John looked at the agents for confirmation. At their nod he turned back to the Llanview contingent. "We might have a mole."

"Then it's not safe to stay with the Bureau." Natalie stood up. "I want to go home."

"No. We're not going to do that," John said.


	13. Chapter 12

A/N - thanks for all the love! The facts about NJ in here are accurate.

>>>>>>

Natalie waited while John spoke to the FBI agents through the window of the ostentatiously obvious bureau car. She smirked as she remembered the agents in the "The Matrix," one of her favorite movies. She had a feeling these agents liked it too, what with their dark suits and dark sunglasses. She adjusted her own glasses and the cap she was wearing to cover her red hair.

"Everything all right, Mr. Anderson?" she asked John as he came to stand in front of her.

John laughed at her poor imitation and shook his head. "The next ferry leaves in ten minutes. We have to rush."

"Where are we going?"

"We'll talk on board."

In unison they turned towards the Delaware side terminal of what Jersey kids called the Cape May Ferry, and what the Delaware kids called the Lewes Ferry.

"I've never been on the ferry," Natalie admitted as John waited for the ticket agent to slip the tickets under the modern glass booth window.

"Really?" John looked at her in surprise.

"I mean, I've seen it. I got to go to Wildwood quite a bit one summer when I lived on my own during high school. But we didn't have much money for things like that."

"Well, now you're going to have a chance. We used to ride it all the time. Bunch of drunken hooligans we were." John whispered the last part and put his arm around her shoulders and led her to the boarding boat.

"How long does it take?"

"Eighty minutes. What's wrong?" John asked when Natalie looked worried.

"Where's Cristian? If anything happens to him again, I don't know if I can forgive myself."

"Forgive yourself for what? It's not your fault." John asked as he led her to the furthest end of the boat away from the dock, and anyone who might be watching for them.

Natalie leaned on the railing and looked out over the water.

"Hey, you can tell me anything."

Natalie sighed and rested her chin on her hands. She thought for a moment, acknowledging to herself that this was exactly the problem. She could tell John anything and never be fearful of being judged, though often hurt. It had never been the same way with Cristian. He had expected her to be a certain way, a certain kind of person.

John watched as Natalie slipped away into her thoughts. He wished there was something he could to make her feel better.

"It was surreal seeing him again. Him being him." A spark of anger shot through her shaded eyes, John couldn't see it, but he heard it in her voice.

"Yeah?" John cleared his throat.

"I couldn't just go back to being his wife, like no time had passed. That's what he wanted. And now he might be…"

"We'll find him. Bo or the Bureau. He'll be all right."

"You can't promise me that." Natalie turned sideways and faced him. "Just like you can't promise me I'm safe and just like you can't promise yourself you won't get hurt."

John's eyes went blank and he looked out to sea.

"I hate when you do that."

"I am who I am, Natalie."

"Who are you, John? Because I'd really like to know."

"What you see is what you get."

"Bullshit! An open book is not who kept the secret about the DNA results!"

"You're right. There are a lot of things I haven't told you. Some of it I don't have the right to tell you, some of it you have the right to know." John turned and faced her, his face in the shadows from the sun setting behind him.

"But first we have some things to take care of. Then I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Anything?" Natalie sounded dubious.

"Anything." John's voice was dead serious.

Natalie took the box with a pained expression and then walked into the ladies room. She put it down on the counter along with the cheap towels John had also pulled out of his rucksack.

"Goodbye red. Hello." She glanced down at the box of hair dye. "Oh man, leave it to a guy to get permanent. L'Oreal Feria, Expresso." Natalie sighed and turned on the water.

>>>>>>

Done, Natalie dumped the dirty towels into the garbage and scowled at her hair. She took the comb John had handed her, also the wrong kind, and attempted to sort it all out. Ten minutes later she had done the best she could. At least she now had wet, knot free hair. Even if the color was rather startling with her fair skin and blue eyes.

"Standing on deck should take care of that." She took the cap and sunglasses and walked outside.

John wolf whistled. He had used the time to shave down his usual goatee.

"Can we go on deck and let the wind dry my hair? The hand dryer wasn't going to cut it."

"First, let's go do something else."

"What?"

"You've never taken the ferry, let me show you something."

A minute later they were walking into a full-blown, floating arcade. Flashing lights and beeps and buzzes surrounded them.

"It's almost like being back home." Natalie's eyes were wide with wonder. "Do we have any quarters? Can we afford it?"

"We can spare a few dollars. Come on." John pulled out his wallet and went to the coin exchange machine. "I don't even recognize half of these games."

"That's because you're old. Maybe we can find some Donkey Kong for you. Or Galaga. I love Galaga."

"Hey." John pushed her further into the play room.

>>>>>>

"You suck at video games. Except the target ones."

John just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. The sun was heading quickly for the horizon. They would make land at nightfall. A good time to travel. While Natalie was in the bathroom he had called an old friend and there would be a car waiting for them. An untraceable one.

"What is the plan?" Natalie asked.

"We're going to head to AC to meet up with some old friends of mine. Then we'll figure something out from there."

"Do you really think they're looking for me?"

John reached out and pushed a fly away strand of hair off Natalie's cheek. "You know, in the sunset you look like golden fire."

Natalie's heart skipped a beat and then sped up. She hated how breathless she felt. He had lied to her. He had let her believe she had slept with an imposter, that her husband was dead. But dammit, she still felt so much for this man and she obviously trusted him since she had agreed to go with him no questions asked. Not that he gave her much of a choice, she remembered back to his commands at the safe house. Everyone listened, including her.

"You're not supposed to say things like that to me."

"Because I lied to you about Cristian's DNA test?" John's voice and face were bleak.

"No, because we're just friends."

"Are we?"

"Are we what?" Natalie's mouth was dry.

"Friends. Are we friends?" John's eyes said something different from his mouth.

Natalie let out the breath she hadn't even known she was holding and looking out at the choppy waters.

"I don't know," she finally whispered. "I don't know what we are."

John couldn't stop himself, he reached out and turned her face towards him and placed his hands on her cheeks. He caressed one cheek with the back of his knuckles. "We're John McBain and Natalie Vega. Two kids from Atlantic City who made good." They just looked into each other's eyes for an endless moment.

"I shouldn't feel this way." Natalie's eyes filled with tears.

"Then we're even, because I shouldn't either." Their open mouths met in a kiss sweeter than any that had gone between them before. The passion that always sparked when they touched was still there, but it was overlaid with something different. The sense of urgency was missing and in its place was a slow acknowledgement of unspoken emotions.

After long minutes, Natalie pulled back and they looked at each other, shock evident in their expression. Without a word John dove back in for another kiss. A voice in his head was screaming at him that this was wrong, that this was a married woman, but he chose to ignore it as he deliberately raised the heat by sliding his fingers down the curve of her breast.

Her felt her breath hitch and pressed closer.

Then the fire started. The burn that was so familiar whenever he tasted her, whenever their breaths merged. He tasted his way down her neck. He felt a jolt of satisfaction when she arched her neck and threw her head back with a groan. His fingertips teased her aching aureole.

Suddenly he heard the sound of people talking. Other people were leaving the safety of the cabin to stand on deck and watch the sunset. Panting, John pulled back and gripped Natalie by the shoulders.

"We shouldn't be doing this." Her words were breathless.

John's eyes burned with passion too long repressed. He wanted to do nothing more than press her down and bury himself within her. He wanted to do nothing but protect her. Love her.

The words hovered on his tongue.

Sensing his struggle, which was much akin to her own, Natalie pressed her fingertips to his lips and shook her head.

"Do you know how much I want to make love to you?" he asked despite her barrier. She was so beautiful. Her hair was still half wet. Her lips were swollen from his, there was red from his fresh stubble on her cheeks and neck and her nipples were pressing against her green "Delaware" t-shirt. "Whoever put the logo on the shirt had to imagine it on your body."

"You're leering at me!" Natalie laughed.

John smiled at having lightened her mood, though her laughter only tightened the fist in his gut. "Come on." He opened his arms and welcomed her body against his. Natalie took a deep breath, he was pleased to note, and turned and leaned against him. Together they watched the sun set over the land to the west of them.


	14. Chapter 13

Touch 13

A/N: 13 is my lucky number!

>>>>>>

"I'm not sure this is a good idea." Natalie moved closer to John, looking around her worriedly as they walked down a street that was obviously on the bad side of town.

"I never thought you would be scared of any street in AC." John put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed her comfortingly.

"I'm not scared!" Natalie pushed his arm away. "I lived on this street before I came to Llanview. I'm worried about being recognized."

"Your hair color is different."

Natalie stopped in the middle of the block and put her hands on her hips. "Look at me. Do you not recognize me? Besides, I didn't always have red hair."

"Oh really?" John put his hand on her arm and pulled her back in step with him.

"I used to experiment. You know, I once had green streaks."

"Green?" John put his arm back around Natalie's shoulders. It was part of their cover, he told himself.

"For the Jets."

"You always do root for the underdog, don't you?"

"Yeah. Like us right now."

John couldn't argue with that, but he didn't like it.

>>>>>>

Natalie sat on edge of a sagging, red plush couch in the slovenly living room of John McBain's contact. Informant, she thought more likely. This was the guy who had left them the nondescript Ford Escort near the ferry stop; now apparently he was going to be providing them with fake identification with the photos they had taken a little while ago in front of the white screen.

If she hadn't already been freaked out by the attack on the safe house and Cristian's disappearance, she was definitely edgy now. Just how long did John think they would have to be hiding and who did he think they were hiding from?

Natalie put her head down on the arm of the couch. She already knew the answer to the latter question – the same people who had taken Cristian in the first place and programmed him to kill Antonio and Tico Santi. Another international mob family who would stop at nothing to get what they want. Natalie closed her eyes. Would this ever be over?

"I'm tired," she told herself to explain her maudlin feelings, but it did nothing to dispel the sense of helplessness that was seeping into her bones. How many times was she going to lose her husband? How many times was she going to be pushed further away from John, because now she could admit that her feelings for him eclipsed what she felt for Cristian? Not that she didn't love Cristian, but after all this time her feelings had changed. She had changed.

And John…John had touched her and looked at her with such intensity she knew that his words in his apartment that day had been a lie. He did love her. Still, there was no guarantee that tomorrow, in five minutes or next month he wouldn't deny it all again and pull away. It was like every kiss they shared put more distance between them instead of bringing them closer.

"Hey."

John's whisper woke Natalie up. She opened her eyes and saw John kneeling down in front of her.

"Sorry." Natalie sat up and straightened her clothes.

"Let's get out of here and get some food and sleep."

"Where?" She asked.

"Where else? The Paradise Inn."

"How many hours are we getting?" Natalie's lips twitched with laughter. "Where's your friend?"

"The less he sees the better. Come on, Mrs. Locke."

"Locke? What's my first name?"

"Olivia. I'm your doting husband Charles."

Instead of the laughter he expected, Natalie just looked sad. He didn't say anything until they were buckled in the car and on their way to the famous no-tell motel on the outskirts of Venice Park.

When they were clear of the neighborhood and John was secure they weren't being followed he reach out and put it on Natalie's knee. "You all right?"

Natalie shrugged and pressed her face against the cool glass of her window. "I'm just tired. Worried about Cristian." She tentatively put her hand over his. "Wondering when all this is going to end."

"I'm sorry."

"Pease don't be telling me that this is your fault. I don't have the energy to tell you how much of an idiot you're being."

"Well." John's lips lifted in the ghost of a smile. "As long as you don't have the energy."

Without a word John turned his hand and entwined their fingers.

>>>>>>>

"Do you always stay in Room 6?" Natalie asked as she looked around the motel room whose main theme seemed to be red flock circa 1965. "Wow. I always thought this was how it would look."

"Sexy, huh?" John put the bags of food and clothes they had picked up at the nearby strip mall down on the rickety table. It had a faux pink marble top that looked like someone had spilled Pepto Bismol and it hurt his eyes.

"No couch."

"I'll sleep on the floor."

Natalie looked down at the red carpeting, which actually was nearer to brown from years of grime, and then back up at John. "I think you might catch something doing that, in addition to a bad back. We'll survive the bed. I think." She added when she sat down and it dipped ominously.

"Eat then shower?" John asked as he took plugged in the mobile phone charger. His own phone was turned off and sitting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean so that they couldn't be tracked through it. Natalie's phone was sitting in a plastic bag on his desk at the station. A shiver ran down his spine as he flashed back to the circumstances leading to his finding it.

"You okay?" Natalie's warm hand on his back brought him back to the present.

"Yeah." He didn't look at her, just continued to unpack their stuff.

"John, where were you just then?"

John's heart was pounding. She hadn't removed her hand and he could feel her soft touch zinging through his entire body.

"I think you should step away for a few minutes." His words were clipped, his voice rough.

Natalie frowned and walked around to face him.

"What's going on with you?" She gasped when he looked up at her. His eyes were dark and burning, his skin still pale.

"John?" Natalie's voice shook.

"Fuck it!" John grabbed her and slid his tongue between her surprised lips. His arm slid around her waist and pulled him against her and he tasted and reveled in her aliveness.

Natalie's arms slid around John's neck as she met his assault. She deliberately rocked her hips against his arousal.

His hold tightened and he began to walk her backwards to the bed. He laid her down, never parting their hungry lips, and crawled up the bed over her. Her legs parted and bent, he lay himself down in between. His hand slid underneath her t-shirt and cupped her breast. Then, needed more, he slid his fingers underneath her bra and kneaded the naked mound.

They moved against each other, fighting to touch and undress each other. Their aroused moans and gasped filled the silence of the room that had seen this all too many times to care.

John took his long-awaited first taste of her straining nipple. Natalie threw her head back and pressed him tighter. As he nipped and suckled, his other hand pushed her shorts down her legs and pressed over her wetness, then slid them aside to push his fingers inside.

Natalie came undone; she moved urgently up against him, the sensations too much to bear. John silenced her with his lips as he pushed her over the edge.

A few minutes later John was cradling Natalie against his shoulder, both of them basking in the aftermath and working on getting their heartbeats and breathing under control.

Natalie eventually looked up at him. "What about you?" she asked quietly.

"It's all right." He pushed now-dark brown hair off her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"But."

"Shhh." John interrupted. Could he tell her why he had done that? How he couldn't resist touching her, even though her husband was possibly out there still alive? How he couldn't bear for her to touch him before they had discussed his part in keeping her in the dark about the DNA results?

"You said you would answer anything I asked."

John took a deep breath and pressed his forehead on the top of her head. He just wanted to hold her just a little longer, but he had promised. He started to move away, but she grabbed his face in her hand.

"You are not going to tell me that this didn't mean anything!"

"It meant everything."

His solemn promise brought tears to Natalie's eyes. "Can we just stay like this a bit longer?" she asked.

He nodded and pulled the blanket over them.


	15. Chapter 14

Touching You – 14?

Natalie stirred in the bed. She reached out an arm, but only touched empty bed. It felt wrong and she woke up more fully. She sat up and looked around and saw a lot of blinding red and pink. She looked over and saw John McBain looking at her from where he was sitting at the room's pink faux marble table.

She flushed and pulled the blanket up against her chest to hide her nakedness. She didn't say a word, just looked at him with vulnerable eyes, waiting for him to set the pace; whether it be forward or back.

"You hungry?"

She nodded and pulled the blanket around herself and looked for her clothing.

"Here." John walked over and picked up her t-shirt and handed it to her.

Natalie took it and put it on.

John sat down on the side of the bed and pushed her hair off her cheek. She kept her face turned away.

"Hey. Hey. Look at me."

Natalie turned, biting her lip.

He framed her face with his hands and pushed her hair back. "I. There's. We." John blew out a breath in frustration.

"Just tell me the truth," Natalie whispered.

John nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them she could see the emotion in his eyes and it took her breath away.

"I should regret what happened, for a lot of reasons, but I don't."

"Why didn't you make love to me?" she asked.

John's smile faded and he touched her lips with his fingers. "Not because I don't want to. But you're married and I have no right to this. No matter how much I want it."

Natalie propelled herself forward and hugged him tightly. Tears were sliding silently from her eyes as she too grappled with what she should be feeling and what she actually did feel.

"Now tell me the truth," John whispered.

Natalie dashed the tears off her cheeks and pulled back so that he could look at her while she spoke.

"I don't feel married to Cristian. I love him. I will always love him and care very deeply for him. But I'm not in love with him anymore. Maybe that makes me a bad person. But what I feel for you and have for a long time is so much…more now."

John slid his thumb over the tears wetting her cheeks.

"You're not a bad person. A lot of time has passed. You've both changed."

"If Caitlin came back how would you feel?"

John jerked slightly at the question.

Natalie sighed and made to pull away.

"Wait." John gripped her arms. "I loved Caitlin very much and I will always regret that she died because of me and that we never got to have the life we planned. But we never will and now." John stopped and stroked Natalie's hair back and smiled softly. "Now, you're the woman who drives me absolutely crazy. Who I miss when she's not around. Who I dream about. Who I want."

Natalie nodded, a sly grin lighting her face, despite the tears still falling.

"You knew that. You always knew that." John shook his head in wonder at her tenacity.

"This is going to really hurt Cristian, especially after everything that's happened. I don't know how I can do that, but I don't know how I can't. I have to be honest with him, he deserves that. I love you, John McBain."

Her heart soared as she saw tears fill his eyes as he finally accepted the inevitable.

"The thing is, Natalie. About my feelings, about saying the words."

"You have trouble saying them. It doesn't matter to me." She didn't let him finish.

"It matters to me. I want to say them to you, but not until I have the right to do that. Not until things are clean with Cris. It sounds silly, but…"

Natalie moved forward and initiated a long, passionate kiss.

John was the one who broke away. "We need to eat and get more sleep. We'll leave at first light."

"We're going to travel during the day?"

"We want to be around crowds of people. Traffic. It'll be harder to spot us and to get at us."

"When will we know it's safe?"

"Bo will call us."

>>>>>>>

"You never explained to me what that guy meant about room six." Natalie's hair was blowing back through the open window of the blue Ford Escort.

"I used to meet informants there when I was with the Bureau. I'd get a matchbook and know to meet at that room."

"Is the guy who got us this car one of those informants?"

John nodded and looked in the side mirror.

"Are we being followed?" Natalie whipped her head around and looked behind them.

"I don't think so." John put his hand on Natalie's knee. "Relax."

Natalie sighed and picked up the newspaper they had picked up along with a to-go breakfast of bagels and coffee. A few minutes later she dropped the paper onto the floor at her feet. She was too restless to sit and read.

"Can I drive?" she asked.

"No."

"Why not? Is it because you're the guy?" she sneered.

"Because this is a standard transmission and you have a sprained ankle."

"It's almost healed. I'm bored."

"If you ask me if we're there yet I'm going to give you a time out." John chuckled.

Natalie shrugged and looked out the window. She didn't speak for several minutes.

"Do you know what driving on the Turnpike reminds me of?"

"What?"

"The beginning of the Sopranos. Bum dee dee bum." She began to mimic the opening music. "Makes me feel like I'm back home when I watch it. Remember when we rented the DVD's and watched it together?"

"I had never seen it but you insisted it was a good show."

"You did criticize some of the law enforcement stuff, but you soon began to enjoy it. Especially the Bada Bing."

"It had good music." Natalie laughed.

"Speaking of." Natalie turned on the radio, searching for something besides talkie radio morning shows. With a sigh she settled on Howard Stern. "Wish we had some CD's with us."

"We need to conserve cash."

"I could get my grandfather to send us some."

"Too risky."

"Antonio? Why don't we call Antonio. Or RJ? They have all those underworld connections. They might be able to tell us something."

"Bo is already doing that."

Natalie sighed and looked back out the window. She didn't see John shoot her a fond look. He was just glad she was alive and well. And in love with him.

Four hours later they were passing driving on Route 95 into Connecticut. There had been little conversation for the past hour other than potential bathroom breaks and discussions of where they would stop for the night.

Natalie had been surprised when John had continued east towards New York instead of turning west to Pennsylvania. The thought of hiding out in New England made her edgy. In her mind it seemed to dead end at the Atlantic Ocean and then they were trapped. John seemed to feel confident about it so she didn't question his plan.

The radio station they were listening to began to get fuzzy, so Natalie reached over and began to switch the stations. A smile spread across her face as the opening strains of Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" filled the tiny car. She sighed and brought her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees.

Under his breath, John began to hum along with the song. Natalie tilted her head and looked over at him. He turned at the same moment and their blue eyes met. She smiled and so did he.


	16. Chapter 15

Her eyes were tearing from the smoke that billowed up around her. Her throat was burning and her lungs were beginning to ache from the effort of breathing. She could see Evangeline through the haze struggling to break free. It looked like they really were going to be a united front after all. After her campaign to win back from John from this woman it was a surprising end, them together.

The effort of struggling with her bonds and with consciousness was getting to heavy. Too hard.

She got an extra shot of adrenaline as John burst into the room. Her vision was too blurry to see the expression on his face as the struggle he had played out in the relative safety of his personal life was suddenly and vividly made into a matter of life and death. Despite his claim that he did not love her, that they were not soul mates it was not until that moment that Natalie finally believed what he had said.

The moment when he turned towards Evangeline and away from her.

She felt the flames edged closer, the heat was now searing in her throat and lungs. She had to close her eyes to stop them from burning.

She felt the first fame lick at her fingers. She couldn't move her hands for the bonds. Her sneakers began to melt to her feet. She was slowly burning alive, but she did not have the gift of unconsciousness as each nerve ending was pushed to the limit. She could smell her own flesh charring.

Natalie sat up in bed with a start and struggled to catch her breath. She could feel John's hand on her back and hear him whisper, but she couldn't hear him over the pounding of her heart. She fisted the flimsy motel covers in her hand as she sought to ground herself in reality. The eerie half light caused by the glare of the neon sign around the blinds only made it more difficult for her to convince herself that she was now awake and not in danger.

As her breathing slowed she could feel her body was slicked with sweat. The air conditioner had apparently given its final wheeze sometime after she fell asleep.

"Natalie!" John's worried tone finally penetrated and she turned and looked at him. He was wearing a wife beater tee and boxer shorts. Even in the shadows she could see he was worried. This was their third motel in as many days and each night after Jersey he had refused to sleep in the bed with her and each night she had awakened more than once with nightmares. Each time he was awake – she was sure that he was sleeping more than cat naps – and holding her and asking her about the dreams. Each was different and sometimes she told him, but sometimes she thought it better that she didn't. Like the dreams about Haver or Flynn.

John pressed a glass of water into her hand and began to wipe the tears and perspiration off her face. She hadn't even realized she had been crying in her sleep.

"Hey." John slid behind her on the bed and rubbed her arms to chase away the chills that shook her body.

"Sorry." Natalie put the half empty glass down on the nightstand.

John nuzzled her neck and wrapped her in his body.

"Tell me about it."

"I was back in the gym. With the fire." She turned her head and leaned it against his shoulder. He stroked her hair gently.

"When you went to save Evangeline I was burning alive." Natalie sighed and put her arms around him. They sat silently for a few moments.

"John?" Natalie was stroking the bare skin peeping out between his mussed shirt and boxers.

"Hmm?"

"What happened in the gym? I don't remember anything after you went to get Evangeline down. Did they take me down while you took her outside?"

"No." John's voice was also a vibration against her ear. "I took you down first. put you on the gym floor and when I went to get Evangeline they took you."

"You got me first?" Natalie shifted so that she could face him. "How? You were heading towards her, I remember that."

"I turned around and saw you were unconscious. I went and got you down first."

Natalie processed this for a moment. "Why did you turn around?" she finally asked.

John put his hand on the back of her neck and tilted his head towards hers. "I just had to." He shook his head to convey that it was a mystery to him why he couldn't turn away from her.

"Is that how you hurt your hand?"

John shrugged the comment away, but a small smile touched his lips.

"Will you stay with me the rest of the night?"

"That's not a good idea." John cleared his throat.

"I don't have nightmares when you're near." She acknowledged to herself that it was a bit of a dirty play, but it was also true. The lack of sleep was beginning to wear on her during the day and John knew it. She could see the struggle in his eyes.

"I'll behave. Girl scount's honor." She held up three fingers.

"Were you ever a girl scout?" He teased.

"A brownie, for a while."

John kissed her forehead. "If you behave yourself." Despite his words he pulled her towards him and initiated a passionate kiss.

"No fair," Natalie mumbled against his lips when she pulled away.

He shrugged, completely unrepentant.

"I'm going to go shower." She got up and began to strip off the t-shirt she was sleeping in. She was completely naked before she got to the bathroom. She turned her head and looked at him looking at her before she walked into the dark room, not bothering to close the door.

"No fair."

She heard his complaint right before she turned on the water.

>>>>>>

"Do you really think we still need to run?" she asked as they packed up their few belongings for another day on the roads. "Can't we just stay here for a while?"

"Well." She looked around the crappy room. "Not here exactly, but not drive all day."

"We need to keep moving. Bo says he's been told that it shouldn't be much longer. There was a glitch in the arrests they were counting on, but that should be resolved."

He looked up at her worried expression. "No word on Cristian. Or Agent Kelly."

Natalie nodded and looked down at her knapsack.

John wished there was something he could say to ease her worry, but it would all be lies.

"Hungry?" he asked as she lifted her bag and met him at the door.

She shook her head and walked past him into the early morning light.

>>>>>>

They were just passing out of New Hampshire into Maine when the encrypted phone rang.

Natalie opened it and waited for the other person to speak first as John had instructed days ago. No one spoke, but she could tell the line was open.

She looked worriedly as John. He glanced over and reached out to take the phone.

"Natalie."

"Cristian! Oh my god, where are you? Are you all right?"

"Natalie, Iisten to me. They know where you are."

"Why? How do you know? Where are you?"

"Don't worry about me. Just tell McBain they know where you are and you need to disappear."

"How do they know where we are?"

"They've been following you since the safe house."

"Where are you? Are you safe?"

"I love you, Natalie."

Cristian hung up.

"Cristian!" she cried futilely into the phone.

John pulled off the highway onto a state road and then into a clearing.

"He said they're following us. That they have been since the safe house. Why haven't they tried to get us? He won't tell how he knows or where he is. They must have him. How did he get this number?" The words tumbled off her lips as quickly as the thoughts came through her head.

"Damn." John cursed and hit the steering wheel. He knew they should have ditched the car days ago.

"There's no number on the caller id."

"We need to ditch the car and find another mode of travel."

"I don't see anyone behind us." Natalie craned her neck and watched out the back window. Then she looked out the open window and tried to see if there were any helicopters that could be tracking them.

"What in the hell is going on, John?" Natalie demanded.

John pulled off the road towards a sign that said "Ogunquit, Population 974."

>>>>>

A/N - honest, that's a real place!


	17. Chapter 16

A/N – A lot of transportation and scenic details are completely fabrication

>>>>>

John continued driving through the town – which basically consisted of three brick buildings containing a couple of stores and a pub and a gas station – until he found an unpaved road that headed through a wooded area. He continued down it for a couple of miles, the Ford Escort bouncing pitifully over the bumps and holes, until suddenly he pulled off the road, through bushes and trees and then backed the car into a particularly dense area.

"What now?" Natalie asked. She was still gripping the phone tightly in her hands.

"I'm going to call an old buddy." John held out his hand and Natalie dropped the warm phone into his palm.

"You have a lot of friends in obscure places, but Maine?" Natalie asked as she undid her seat belt and leaned closer to the dashboard to keep watch for anyone following them.

"You'll like him," John promised as he dialed the number from memory. A few moments later his friend answered and he proceeded to tell him their predicament, in the most bare of terms, and asking for an assist. After a short conversation he closed the phone and told Natalie to get outo of the car.

"Where are we going?" She asked.

"We'll sit on the other side of those trees. I don't want to be a sitting target in here, if someone is following us." This was the first time John had voiced his doubt.

Natalie didn't look at him as she grabbed her bag from the back seat.

"Hey? You okay?"

"You're thinking he's still brainwashed and he's setting us up." Now, Natalie pinned him with a look over the top of the car.

"I have to consider it. Just like I have to consider that they are following us. I'm sorry if that upsets you."

Natalie sighed and walked to the front of the car where he was waiting. "I'm sorry. I'm not upset with you. I was thinking the same thing."

John put his hand on her upper back and led her to their temporary hiding place. He made sure she sat down and then scoped out the area to make sure he had uninterrupted sight from all directions.

"It would be all right if you were angry with me," he said quietly when he was done, drawing his gun.

"Why?" Natalie looked up at him.

"I kept the DNA results secret. I let him go to prison without an identity. Without making sure he got help."

Natalie nodded and looked down at her hands for a moment.

John waited tensely for her response.

"You said you did it because he asked you to. Because you wanted to protect me from what my husband had become."

"You are angry." John studied her face.

"You should have let me make my own choices. I can take care of myself, John. Psycho killers excepted."

"I know. I know you can." He looked around as he detected the sound of an approaching vehicle. He put a hand out to signal Natalie to keep quiet and he cocked his gun and crept forward.

After a few moments, they heard the vehicle stop nearby. Then a door opened and there was a call of a shrill bird, then a wolf whistle.

John put his fingers to his lips and blew out an answering call.

"Hey, McBain. Get your flat ass out here!"

"Stop looking at my ass McRae!" John grinned and helped Natalie stand up.

"Your good friend I take it?" she commented.

"You'll like him."

Natalie just barely stopped her jaw from dropping when she saw the man and the truck. The truck was a light blue monstrosity full of dents, dings and rust. The man next to it was the last thing she expected to be driving such a thing. He was simply gorgeous. Moss green eyes, dimples, Hugh Grant hair and Seven jeans and a button down shirt that matched his eyes. Divine.

"Tate McRae, at your service." He walked over to Natalie and introduced himself. He took her hand and pressed his lips to it. "A pleasure to meet you," he said as he lingered.

John pounded him on the back, but Tate still didn't let go right away.

"Come on, man!" John laughed and pulled him away. Natalie smiled over the attention and John's obvious jealousy.

The two men engaged in a manly hug, lots of back pounding and comments. Natalie enjoyed the sight of a happy John. She tilted her head, studying him. She didn't think she'd seen him look this happy in a long time.

"Let's get going. Make sure she buckles in," Tate directed.

John helped Natalie climb up into the truck and got in after her. He had some trouble pulling the door shut. When he was done, he made sure Natalie was securely belted in and then buckled himself in.

A few minutes later, Natalie realized there was a method to the madness of the truck as they didn't take any set roads, but traveled through fields and up and down hills.

"Where are we going?" she shouted towards John as she struggled to hang on. John had his arm wrapped around his shoulder and he was holding the "oh shit" handle by the door.

"Later!" he laughed maniacally as they hit another pothole that sent them bouncing under their restraints.

Natalie grabbed John's shirt and let out a laugh of her own. She hadn't been four wheeling since high school in Jersey. She had a fleeting thought that maybe she shouldn't be enjoying herself so much, but the joy on John's face was infectious.

About an hour later they pulled onto a dirt road that led to a modern looking house on a lake.

"Welcome to Chez McRae. Come inside. Everything should be ready soon."

John helped Natalie out of the truck, conscious of her tender ankle. "This is gorgeous. Are we staying here?"

"We're just here to get some new ideas. We're going to drive to the border and get on a train and go into Canada," John explained and led her into the house.

>>>>>>>>>>

John and Natalie stayed long enough to get their new identity papers, including passports completed and to have a meal and a rest. Tate also provided them with some new clothes and real luggage. Natalie wished they'd had time enough for her to luxuriate in a bath, but the shower was excellent enough.

After their meal, they got into a Mercedes that was more in keeping with what she expected to see Tate driving. During the drive Tate regaled Natalie with stories of his days working with John in the Bureau. It turned out Tate used to work in the Bureau with John and had left the service a few years ago to start his own security firm. He knew John pretty well and had obviously also known Caitlin, although he made no obvious reference to her.

It was after dark when Tate left the state road and drove into a city. He drove them straight to a towering brick building and stopped the car.

"Where are we?" Natalie asked.

"St. Pierre Hotel. You'll spend the night here and catch the train tomorrow."

"A hotel? Not a fleabag motel? No roaches? A real bathtub?" Natalie was in raptures.

"Tim is going to go inside and arrange for your room." Tate was referring to their rather silent driver.

"Room?" Natalie looked at John, one eyebrow lifted.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kent on their first anniversary trip would surely not have separate rooms." John slid his hands around "Mrs. Kent's" waist and pulled her against him.

"Mr. Kent surely wouldn't sleep on the couch on their first anniversary either." Natalie slid her arms around his neck.

"Elana, surely my snoring is too much for you when we're in the same bed?" John whispered in her ear.

Natalie turned her head and met his lips. He groaned in protest, but was unable to force himself to pull away. His hands slid down her hips and pulled her closer to his arousal as Natalie thread her fingers through his hair and pulled him deeper into the kiss.

"Ahem. Mr. and Mrs. Kent, the porter is ready to take your baggage to your room. The Honeymoon Suite." Tate interrupted their clinch.

John was panting as he pulled back. Natalie slid her hand down his back to his ass. "The Honeymoon Suite. I don't think we should put it to waste."

John groaned and took her hand and walked over to Tate to say thanks and goodbye.

Before he left, Tate leaned down and whispered in Natalie's ear. "You're the best thing that ever happened to him. Don't let him squirm out of it."

"I won't," Natalie promised and grabbed John's hand back and followed their luggage into the hotel.

"Whew. Imagine her in red hair," Tate said as he got back into the car.


	18. Chapter 17

** 17 - SMUT WARNING in last part. You can skip it if you want. It won't impact the story flow for you.  
**

St. Pierre, Honeymoon Suite

John plugged the encrypted phone that Tate had provided them into its charger. He hadn't told Natalie about the switch, knowing she would worry about Cristian, but he was concerned about how that telephone number had been accessed and if the phone itself had been compromised. The attack had taken place right after Natalie used the phone to talk to her mother. That might have been what Cristian's warning meant.

John ran a hand through his still damp hair and walked over the window. They were on the 10th floor of the hotel, which was the tallest building in its area so he wasn't that concerned about being watched. From this vantage point he could see over the border to Canada, where tomorrow he and Natalie would continue their flight.

He didn't let on to her, but he was getting very uneasy about being out in the cold this long. Last word Bo had gotten was that the organization responsible for taking Cristian out from under Tico Santi's nose and programming him to kill Tico and then the other heir, Antonio, was also responsible for the attack on the safe house. The same organization that was supposed to have been taken down by now. John wasn't sure what was true and what wasn't, but he was certain that they were not safe to go home or even to stop running.

He'd had talked it through with Tate while Natalie had taken a nap earlier. Tate had asked him if he was making the danger out to be worse than it was because he was afraid to go back home with Natalie and move forward. Whether this running away was from danger or from his feelings. John smiled ruefully. It was a fair question. He'd been running from his feelings for Natalie for a long time. Seizing on every reason or escape to avoid them or convince himself he couldn't have her. All John could do was trust his instincts and do his best to keep her safe.

John sighed and picked up his gun and made sure it was loaded. He wished he had a target range to escape to right then. He hated thinking about this stuff almost as much as he hated talking about it. Yet, he couldn't seem to stop the thoughts crowding in on him. When he thought Natalie was kidnapped by the Killing Club killers and possibly dead he'd realized that he might never get to fix things with her. For the most part he thought he had, as much as he could while things were left open with her husband - be that grief or parting. Or, he thought with a sinking in his stomach, trying to make things work with Cristian.

Holding the gun John walked to the other side of the suite and opened the door. He peeked out at the hall and then the stairwell that was across the hall from their plush room. Satisfied, he went back into the room and closed the door. He engaged the locks and then tested it with a pull.

'All clear?" Natalie asked.

John turned around, a quip ready on his tongue. Then his tongue and brain seized as he caught sight of Natalie standing at the bathroom door clad in a turquoise slip.

"I asked if we're all clear." Natalie flipped her still-brown hair over her shoulders and waited.

"You look beautiful." His voice broke on the last word.

"Thank you." Natalie smiled and skimmed her hands over the silk at her hips.

'No. Thank you." John looked around for a place to put his gun.

"Actually, I think you should thank Tate."

"Oh, I will. I will."

Natalie walked over to John and took the gun out of his hand. He toyed with the silky strap on her shoulder. Natalie moved out of his reach towards the bed and put the gun down on the bedside table.

"Tate had another present," John said.

"Oh?"

John walked over to one of the suitcases and pulled out a box and tossed it to her.

She caught the box of condoms and laughed. "Subtle. But only 12?"

John walked over towards her and put his fingers through her hair. "I like the brown, but I can't wait until it's so red it burns my fingers." He moved his fingers to her neck.

"John?" Natalie sighed as his touch sent shivers down her spine and her nipples hardened.

"Hmmm?" John was completely focused on making Natalie melt.

"John?" Natalie loved the look of total concentration and lust in his eyes. "I want to make love with you."

"I kind of figured that out." John tilted her head back and pressed his lips to hers and took her under into a passionate kiss.

"You were saying?" John asked as he pulled up for air.

"What?" Natalie kept her eyes closed and tightened her arms around John's neck.

"About making love."

Natalie opened her eyes and blinked a few times. "You said you wanted to wait for some...some." Natalie pulled away from John and walked a few feet away. She stood with her back to him as she tried to gather her words. Then she turned around looking completely serious.

"I'm not going to change my mind if we wait, I can promise you that," John said.

"I'm not either, John. I want to be with you. I want there to be an 'us' and I don't want to wait. Look at us. Where we are." She motioned around the room. "We're running from people who want to kill us. We may not have a lot of time."

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Natalie felt her stomach flutter at his intensity. She loved when he was in cop mode, when he was protective of her. She also knew when she had to draw a line and remind him she could take care of herself in some situations. Like this one. She walked back towards him and put her hand on his cheek.

"John I have wanted you for a very long time. It hasn't been easy and without hurt, but here we are in this moment. I don't want us be cheated out of any more time together. I love you."

John's eyes glistened with unshed tears and he swallowed with difficulty.

"John," Natalie said softly.

"I love you, Natalie." He cupped her head and brushed back her hair.

Natalie smiled and her face glowed. John's lips lifted in a smile that he did his best to not repress as was his habit.

"We're going to condition those lips so they don't fight a smile." Natalie put her fingers to his lips.

John's eyes darkened and he captured her fingers with his lips.

Natalie laughed and put her other hand behind his head and pulled it down. John let her fingers go and initiated and sweet, slow kiss. His hands cupped her waist and then slid up the silky material up her rib cage and stopped below her breasts.

"No more waiting."

>>>>>>>>>

Natalie was sleeping on her side, John curled around her. The blanket was pulled up under her arms as the room air conditioner cooled the room just below most people's level of comfort. Fortunately, both John and Natalie liked it that way.

John stroked her bare arm as he watched her sleep. Their lovemaking, all three times, had been like nothing he had ever experienced before. He sent a brief thought to Caitlin, but then he let it go. He had never felt so connected to a woman before while making love. Not even that first time after they came back from Atlantic City had it felt like this. That had been fun and passionate. They were both different now.

There was no Haver, no Caitlin and no Cristian between them. It was just them.

John felt himself harden again at the sense memory of being inside her. He couldn't help but press himself against her bare skin, but he didn't want to wake her. They had a long way to go tomorrow and he wanted her rested and alert. God, he smiled to himself, he was just making excuses. He just wanted to take care of her. He stopped stroking her arm and wrapped his arm around her and held on.

He bit back a groan as she shifted in her sleep, grinding herself into him. His slid his fingertips down her clavicle and slipped under the sheet and rubbed her nipple. He felt it harden under his fingers. His breathing quickened.

His hand trailed down her body and he nudged her legs apart with his knee. He dipped his fingers in her moist center and she let out a moan.

"You're awake."

"Ever since little Johnny woke up against me."

"Hey, watch it with the little." He punctuated his scold by slipping a finger inside her. He teased. Aroused. Tempted. Slid another finger in and caused her to writhe against his pulsing hard on.

The ghost of her taste filled his mouth.

Her hand gripped his hip and pulled at him desperately. He had intended, had thought that after making love with her three times that this time would be less frantic, but he was already craving to be inside her hot core.

He felt around blindly behind him for the condom box. He heard it hit the floor and he groaned.

"Get them, dammit!" she ordered.

He whipped around and picked them up.

Natalie pulled it out of his hands and ripped one out of the box. She opened it with her teeth and prowled toward him. She unfurled the condom over him and then sat herself down on hjm.

Both of them moaned in satisfaction as he filled her. John supported her arching back as she raised and lowered herself on him. Her breasts brushed his chest and her hair was tangled in his hands. Within minutes she was panting and on the edge.

"That's it, baby."

John felt himself gripped and squeezed by her inner contractions, but he held back his own release just until he felt and saw her reach the peak. Then he emptied himself. They kissed sloppily and moaned into each other's mouths up and over the pleasure ride and as their bodies shook in the aftermath. He gathered her against him and held on.

"I love you." He didn't know how lived without her in his arms.

Tonight they had gotten to a new level in their relationship. Tomorrow they would enter a new country.


	19. Chapter 18

A/N - thanks for the great feedback! It feeds the muse! Do you recognize a scene in this one!

>>>>  
Touching You 18

Natalie couldn't keep the smile off her face as she and John walked, hand in hand, from the ticket area to the train. She felt John's eyes on her from time to time, but she had no desire to play it cool. She had been waiting for this for what seemed like forever. It wasn't just part of a cover story. This was real. As she breathed in the crisp air of New England, at the end of the United States, she knew it couldn't feel more real if she was back home in AC or Llanview.

She felt John's eyes on her, but she averted her eyes and smiled her secret smile.

Natalie looked out the window of the train as they crossed from the United States into Canada. It was her first time outside her home country. It might only have been Canada, but it might as well have been Timbuktu. She only regretted that the stamp she had gotten before the train had left was not in her own passport.

She put her hand in the cool seat next to her. John had said he was going to get them drinks, but she knew he was also going to check out their fellow passengers. She could tell that he had some sort of instinct that they were still being followed. She couldn't blame him, she didn't say anything, but when they had been standing in the train station waiting for immigration clearance she had gotten chills on her neck.

She felt those chills again when someone came to stand beside her row. Startled, she looked over.

"J…Joey, what's wrong?"

"Come on."

Natalie grabbed her bag and slid out of the seat in front of John. He pushed her through the car. Once they got outside the car she turned and looked at him carefully.

"What's wrong?" She saw him pressing his hand to his side.

"Just come on." John pushed her hands away and grabbed her arm and began to pull her into the next car. Silently, she allowed him to push her through three cars until they reached the platform above the couplers between the first class cabin and the crew car.

Natalie put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to face her.

"We were followed. Tate's men took them out."

"But not before you were hurt. Let me see."

"Not now. The train stops in a few minutes. We'll get off and get a motel room." John put his free hand on Natalie's cheek. "I'm fine.' Then he took his hand back and took out his gun.

"Let me." Natalie put her hand over the gun.

They looked at each other silently for a long moment, before John nodded and handed the gun over.

"The safety," John began to explain, but before he could instruct her she had released the safety and cocked the gun.

"What?" She gave him a grin and a wink. "Get behind me."

"Yes, ma'am," John said, his voice laced with pain.

Natalie put the safety back on and slid the gun into the waist band of her jeans. Then she opened her bag and pulled out a shirt and pressed it into John's hands.

He gave her a cryptic look and slid it under his shirt.

Natalie blinked back tears and turned to keep look out.

A few minutes later, as John predicted, the train stopped. She hid the gun behind her large bag and stopped herself from helping John down from the coupler platform.

She could feel his breathing labored behind her and her own heart pounded with concern for him. Tears pricked her eyes as they went to the front of the train station and John hailed a taxi.

John asked the driver to take them a hotel in an area with some shopping for his wife and then leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes.

Natalie ignored his protests and put her hands under his shirt. She pulled her hand out and it was stained with blood. She bit back a gasp and looked up at him. He shook his head and leaned sideways to press a kiss to her cheek.

"I'm fine. Act cool. Check us in." He handed over his wallet and sat up as straight as he could.

In ten minutes they were in a populated area and she pulled Canadian money Tate had provided out of his wallet and paid the taxi. She left him lounging on a couch as she checked in with Mrs. Elana Kent's American Express. She complained of their lost luggage and that it was expected the next morning.

She helped John into the elevator and gave him one of the room keys and went back out, ignoring John's warnings to not go alone.

>>>>>>

Fifteen minutes later Natalie entered the room with a brown bag of groceries. She put the bag down on the room's table and went to John who was lying down on the bed.

"Let me take a look."

"I'm not bad."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"What are you a nurse? I'm fine." He tried to avoid her inspection, but she forced his shirt up and moved the makeshift pressure bandage he had made with her shirt out of the way. She gasped when she saw the amount of blood soaking the fabric.

"Not bad? Why do you always have to be the hero? Why can't you just admit it hurts like hell?"

"Okay, it hurts like hell."

"Was that so hard?" she asked.

"No, but it didn't really help either."

Natalie grabbed the paper bag and put it beside her on the floor.

"Maybe this will."

"Scotch?" John asked hopefully.

"Better, bandages and antiseptic cream with pain killers."

"Okay, so now I'm in pain and disappointed."

"Shut up." Natalie couldn't stop herself from smiling as she unbuttoned his shirt and began to pull it off his shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

"Just lie still."

She began to tend his wound.

"I know you'd like it if we were back in Texas in the old days, just like one of my Buchanan ancestors." She smiled at the thought of the long line of people she was now related to. "I'd get some hooch from the local saloon and pour half of it on your wound and half down your throat. Then you could bite a bullet while I used a branding iron to cauterize the big, gaping hole in your stomach."

"Hooch?" John laughed then grimaced the pain.

"What happened, John?" She didn't look up from the flesh wound on his side she was bandaging.

"It was no big deal. Some guys had followed us on the train. They saw me and chased me through a couple of cars. Tate had sent some bodyguards with us. They took them out, but not before one of them got a shot off me. I'm fine."

"Well, I'm not. When I saw you come over clutching your side, my heart stopped. Why are you doing this? Why are you on the run with me?"

"It's my job. To protect and serve."

"If that's true, why didn't we go with the FBI to another safe house? Or back to Llanview? Why are we hiding out like fugitives and running into another country? Who are these people and why are they trying to hurt me?"

"I'm really going to need that scotch if I'm going to answer so many questions."

A tear slid down Natalie's cheek as she moved to pull off John's shoes.

"Hey," John whispered.

"Okay, then just answer one. Is this really all business for you?"

John didn't answer, but he couldn't look away from her piercing blue eyes.

"No. I told you before I…I love you. Saving you has always been gut instinct."

Natalie moved up and began to remove his pants.

"What are you doing?"

When she was done she pulled the blankets out from under him and tucked him into the bed. She climbed over him and lay down next to him.

"Why did it take you so long to admit what I've known all along?"

"Because I'm slow?"

Natalie laughed and put her arm around his chest.

"I love you, John." She sighed.

"Then how about feeding me?"

Natalie smiled and pressed a kiss his to his cheek.


	20. Chapter 19 Touching You

Touching You – 19/19

A/N – Thank you so much for the wildly encouraging feedback. It really fueled this story. That said, it really could go on and on and on for chapters, but I need to start on something new! So this is the end.

>>>>>>>>

Natalie stood at the window looking through her reflection and out over the night skyline of Llanview. The glare of the hospital waiting room lights washed out the color of her hair and the chill of the air conditioning made her shiver. She wrapped her arms around herself, partly to ward off the cold and partly in comfort.

She felt him before she heard him come up behind her. She tilted her head slightly and their eyes met in the glass' reflection. A strong shiver wracked her body when he put his warm hand on her shoulder.

"Michael said everything was healing fine, but he put in a few stitches anyway. He said to thank you for saving his brother's ass."

Natalie forced a smile, but it didn't meet her eyes.

"Hey." John put his other hand on her neck. "What's wrong?"

Natalie put her fingertips onto the window.

John began to stroke her hair as he waited for her to formulate her response.

"I don't want to do this again."

"Grieve?" he asked understandingly.

She nodded and leaned back against his body.

John wrapped his arms around her.

"He could be out there somewhere. Hiding. Kidnapped. Dead." She turned around and their eyes connected. "What do you think happened?"

"I think that he and Agent Kelly are hiding out on the run, just like we were. I think that we would have heard if anything had happened from someone that was arrested in the past week."

"What about the witness protection program?"

"That's a possibility too." John wished there was something he could say or do to make the pain disappear for her.

"Carlotta and Antonio never even got to see him again."

"They might again." John stroked her cheek.

"I'm _not_ going to do this again." Natalie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes she forced a tentative smile.

"Surely you can do better than that?" John chuckled.

Natalie's smile brightened and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Do we have to go see your family tonight?"

"If we get it over with tonight we don't need to surface until, well, we need to go back to work."

"Well." John dragged the word out. "We won't be able to hide from Roxy at my place and we can't stay at Llanfair. Fancy a trip back to AC?"

"Can we ride the train again?"

John smiled, his lips hovering above hers. "I think that we could do that. We'll sit next to each other quietly. I'll put my arm around you." John slid his fingers under her shirt and teased the skin at her waist.

"John McBain, who knew you had a way with words?"

"It must be you. Touching you."

Natalie pressed forward the few final centimeters and initiated a kiss that they both felt down to their toes.

End

>>>>

Touching you.

I miss it.

Your scent.

I need it.

I let you go, but held on tight.

The way I miss you.

The way you ease me.

The way you kiss me.

The way you tease me.

Your smile.

I memorized it.

Your laugh.

It haunts dreams.

Words I could never say. Lies I couldn't not.

Now, you're gone.

Touching you.

I need it.

Your scent.

I miss it.

I need to find you. Though you were never mine to give away.

I sit in my chair and I work and I pray.

Because touching you.

I need it.

>>>>>>


End file.
